Jayanthi Pawar By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: An eight-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped by 16 men, including her relatives, over a period of four years, died on Thursday. While the police is awaiting the postmortem report, the child’s parents said that she died after a prolonged illness. The shocking case came to light in July 2019 when the girl’s mother filed a police complaint in Villupuram district stating that her two daughters had been raped by several of her relatives since 2017.

On Thursday evening, the younger daughter, Priya (name changed), complained about stomach pain and stepped into the toilet at around 9.40 pm once and at 10.10 pm again. Since she was in the toilet for a long time, Lakshmi (name changed), her mother, broke the door open only to see her daughter lying unconscious on the floor. She was rushed to a private hospital where she was declared dead on arrival. Later, she was taken to a Government Hospital for postmortem and Chennai city police registered a case under IPC Section 174 (unnatural death).

Priya’s elder sister, now 10 years old, is studying in a private school in the city. Lakshmi, who works at a private firm, had moved to Chennai in 2018 after remarrying. Her daughters were in the care of her mother when the sexual assaults took place. After filing the police complaint, Lakshmi brought the girls to Chennai fearing for their lives. Blaming themselves for not providing better health care for their daughter, Priya’s step-father recalled her as a smart child who was fascinated by police officers and dreamt of becoming one.

Speaking to Express on Saturday, he recalled how she would wake up in the middle of the night crying and on how she would suddenly get lost in her thoughts even when surrounded by family members. The only constant was that, in the last eight months, she kept saying she had stomach pain. Her frequent visits to the bathroom drew the attention of her parents. While Priya had been treated for an infection after the complaint was filed, he regretted never having taken her for a full medical check up.

Behavioural changes

“For a very long time we did not know both our girls were being sexually abused. It was only in July 2019 that we started noticing some behavioural changes in Priya that provoked me to further probe into the changes,” the step-father said. Lakshmi had separated from her husband -- the girls’ father -- in 2015 and was working in a different town. The children were with her mother, in a village in Villupuram district. She remarried in 2018 and moved to Chennai.

“In May 2019, the children came to spend their vacation with us. After the vacation they were hesitant to go back to Villupuram. We slowly started noticing behavioural changes in both the girls, including disturbed sleep, sudden shivering, being frightened and not allowing anybody to touch them. Though we questioned them, the duo remained quiet fearing we might shout at them,” Lakshmi said.In July 2019, the elder daughter fainted while she at school and a government doctor confirmed that the children had been raped by multiple men.

After the doctors informed the Childline, inquiries revealed that both her daughters had been repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by Lakshmi’s own relatives and their friends for over four years.Based on the direction of Childline, Lakshmi lodged a complaint at a local police station in Villupuram and 16 people were booked under POCSO Act and remanded in judicial custody. However, all of them were released on bail in November and December. “The death of the child does not seem to be connected to them,” Villuppuram Superintendent of Police S Jeyakumar told Express. “However, if the autopsy report shows that the sexual assault was the cause of death, we will take action accordingly,” he added.

No interim compensation

Although the case is under trial, the victims did not receive any interim compensation, provision of which is mandatory under Rule 7 of the POCSO Act. As relief was not granted, the family, which is lower middle class, said they had to borrow money to pay for medical treatment of the girls