TRICHY: In an incident which brings back memories of the Nirbhaya case, a minor girl was raped for 6 months and on October 18, was stripped, abused and physically tortured by five neighbours including a minor boy and a woman at a locality in Thiruvaiyuru in Thanjavur district. The all women police in Thiruvaiyaru arrested all of them on Tuesday.The arrested were identified as Kannan alias Gopalakrishnan, 21, Mahendran and Sivakumar, 35, all three siblings, a 28-year-old woman named Vidya and a 16-year-old boy. The sexual abuse which has been going on for nearly six months came to light after the father of the 14-year-old girl lodged a complaint with the police on Monday. According to it, the five accused made the girl naked, tied her to a tree near their house and thrashed her with a cattle prod for several hours on the night of October 18 on charges of stealing cash and mobile phone from their houses. The gang unleashed the violence after they attacked and chased away her father from the spot for questioning their frequent verbal abuse of his daughter.Inspector of AWPS, Thiruvaiyaru, K Suguna, said that the girl managed to untie herself from the tree and take shelter in a banana grove. The next morning, she contacted her father by borrowing a mobile phone and informed him of her ordeal. He rescued her and got her admitted to Thiruvaiyaru government hospital on October 20. “The girl suffered injuries at 13 places caused by attack with the prod and branding besides undergoing months of sexual assault by the three men and the boy,” inspector Suguna told TOI.When the matter was brought to the notice of the police on Monday, they detained all the five people and interrogated them. It came to light that the 16-year-old boy had committed penetrative sexual assault on her for the past six months. In between, the others came to know of the sexual abuse and the men began to bully her verbally and sexually assault her. The victim as well as the five perpetrators including the woman belonged to the same community.A case was registered against the boy under sections 5( l), 6 and 8 of the protection of children from sexual offences (Pocso) act and 294 (b), 323, 324, 355, 342 and 506 (i) against all of them for further offences of torturing her. All the arrested were produced in court and remanded in judicial custody except the boy who was sent to the government observation home in Thanjavur. The girl was referred to Thanjavur medical college hospital for further medical tests.