‘LINGAYAT SEER RAPED 13-YR-OLD MULTIPLE TIMES’: CHARGE SHEET

MYSURU: Lingayat seer Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, the former pontiff of a prominent mutt in Karnataka’s Chitradurga district accused of sexually assaulting minor girls, raped a 13-year-old girl multiple times after calling her to his room at night between 2013 and 2015, according to the police’s charge sheet filed in the case.

The 64-year-old seer would rape the teenager after everyone went to bed and ensured she left before the others woke up, the charge sheet said. Sharanaru, who has also been accused of sexually assaulting at least two girls of a high school run by Jagadguru Murugarajendra Vidyapeetha Mutt, is currently in jail after he was arrested under Pocso Act on September 1.

INDORE: A nine-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped from a construction site and raped by a man in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore city, a police officer said on Sunday.

The victim, who suffered injuries due to the assault, has been admitted to a hospital and her condition is stated to be critical, Indore’s deputy commissioner of Police, Amit Tolani, told reporters. The incident took place on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday at the site of an under-construction building in Rajendra Nagar locality where the girl’s father worked as a security guard, Tolani said.

The girl was sleeping with her parents in a small hut-like structure at the site when the 32-year-old accused allegedly kidnapped her, he added.

The accused took the girl to the other side of the construction site and raped her.

Based on the CCTV footage of the area, the police zeroed-in on the accused, who is a resident of Ahirkhedi village in Indore district, said Tolani.

The accused was arrested on Saturday evening and he told the police that he had committed the crime, the officer said.