Case registered under POCSO Act

A teenage girl was allegedly abducted from outside her home and gang-raped by four men in a village in Haryana’s Palwal district earlier this week.

A case has been registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act at Palwal’s women police station.

Officials said the matter was under investigation and no arrests had been made so far.

The family had accused the men of raping the girl in August this year as well, but the First Information Report (FIR) was cancelled after investigation, police said.

According to the FIR in the fresh case, the victim, aged around 17, had gone out to relieve herself around 11 p.m. on December 4, when four men abducted her and took her to the fields on the outskirts of the village. The girl returned two hours later and told her mother that the accused had raped her, said officials. Her parents were not at home when the abduction took place, said the FIR.

The girl’s mother, also the complainant in the case, said the accused had gang-raped her daughter on August 13 this year and an FIR was registered three days later at Bahin police station.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said the police were doing its work and the culprits would not be spared. He said the government had taken several steps to ensure the safety of women in the State, such as setting up of women police stations and a provision for capital punishment in cases of rape of a minor below the age of 12.