"The complainant has claimed that the accused is an adult," police said. (Representational)

An 80-year-old woman was allegedly raped by a 15-year-old boy at a village in Bihar's Madhubani, the police said today.

Police said that the accused, who is a distant relative of the woman, allegedly raped her around midnight and tried to muffle her screams by forcing a piece of cloth into her mouth.

The noises alerted the woman's family members and they rushed to catch the boy. They beat him up before being handing him over to police.

The woman's daughter-in-law filed a police complaint.

"The complainant has claimed that the accused is an adult and his certificates which showed him as a minor were fake. This would be ascertained through medical examination," the Superintendent of Police Satya Prakash said.

The accused was sent to judicial custody after being produced before a magistrate, he said.