Parents strike deal for rape victim’s modesty

■ Accused gives parents ` 5 lakh as advance to change minor girl’s statement in court

In a shocking incident, a family negotiated their 15- year- old daughter's modesty for a sum of ` 20 lakh. Her parents took ` 5 lakh as an advance from the accused and forced the girl, a victim of gangrape, to change her statement in the court. But the girl, collecting her courage, took the bag of money and approached the police.

She lodged a complaint against her parents, including the accused. The police filed a case against five accused, including her parents, for criminal conspiracy, threatening the girl and giving false testimony in the court.

The police have taken the victim's mother into custody on Sunday. The victim told the police that she is facing life threat from the accused, including her parents.

The police have kept her in the children's home for the time being as the girl had refused to live with her parents.

The police said, the 15year- old girl, who was gangraped last year, lives with her family in Kirari, Outer Delhi. When she approached the police on April 10, they filed a case against one of the accused, Sunil Shahi, a property dealer, who is out on interim bail. Shahi offered ` 20 lakh to her parents to force the girl to change her statement against him in the court and shockingly, her parents agreed.

On April 8, Shahi threatened the victim that if she would not change her statement in the court, she would face dire consequences. On April 9, Sunil’s associates, Santosh Parihar and Raman, came to her home and paid ` 5 lakh as an advance to the girl’s parents.

After taking the money, the victim's parents pestered her to change her statement in court. When she refused, she was brutally beaten up. On April 10, when her parents went to the court, she took the money and approached the police and narrated the entire incident.

On August 30 last, the girl had suddenly disappeared. Her parents lodged a missing person report in Aman Vihar police station. Six days later when she came back, she told them that two men had gangraped her. The police filed a case against Shahi and Chandrabhushan Pandey under the Pocso Act.