A seven-year-old girl is in critical condition at a New Delhi hospital after undergoing surgery for injuries she suffered while being raped.

Her mother was by her bedside after the girl underwent hours of surgery.

It is believed a metal pipe was used in the assault.

India is in the middle of a rape crisis, with seemingly no end to a horror string of sex attacks - despite the raping of a minor now being punishable by death. (AP)

A 21-year-old has been arrested in connection with the rape, which occurred in the district of Shahdara in the north-eastern part of the city.

The girl was in extreme pain after the attack, said Swati Maliwal, chairwoman of the Delhi Commission for Women.

"We are working out her rehabilitation plan," she told CNN. "It is very unfortunate that these rape cases are not ending in Delhi. Police resources continue to be extremely low in Delhi."

In a series of tweets, Maliwal provided additional details of the attack, saying the girl, who comes from a poor family, had been lured to a park in Seemapuri, where the perpetrator assaulted her.

Indian activists shout slogans as they protest against the alleged gang rape of a 19-year-old girl in Rewari Haryana, in New Delhi, India, on September 17. (EPA)

She was bleeding "incessantly" after the attack.

"Cannot describe the pain the little girl was experiencing. Already malnourished, she has a long struggle ahead," she added.

"We are going to support her in her legal fight to ensure death penalty to her culprits. Will file compensation application & shall make all efforts to rehabilitate her."

India's scourge of rape



A string of attacks on girls in the last year have sparked outrage in India. The latest rape conjures memories of a December 2012 attack that put India's rape crisis under a spotlight.

In that incident, six males boarded a private bus, grabbed a 23-year-old woman, incapacitated a man with whom she had gone to the movies and proceeded to take turns raping the woman while beating her with an iron rod.

She died of organ failure after being transported to Singapore for further treatment.

A candlelit vigil is held after the rape of a seven-year-old girl in in Bhopal in June. (EPA/AAP)

Four men were sentenced to hang, one committed suicide in prison in 2013 and a juvenile attacker was sentenced to three years in juvenile detention.

More recently, the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl stoked furore and religious tensions after police found the girl's body in a forest in the isolated Himalayan district of Kathua. She had been kidnapped while grazing horses January 12.

The girl was drugged, gang raped and strangled before her body was dumped in the forest five days later, police said. Three police officers and a former government official were among the eight Hindu men arrested in the attack.

Police in May announced they had arrested a primary suspect in the gang rape and burning death of a 16-year-old girl in north-eastern state of Jharkhand. The man arrested was one of 20 accused in the attack.

A village council ordered the men to do situps and pay a 50,000-rupee ($750) fine, enraging the accused rapists, who then assaulted the victim's parents and set their house on fire, killing the girl inside.

Weeks later, a man raped a 17-year-old in her relative's home in Jharkhand state before setting her ablaze and fleeing, police said.

A rape every 13 minutes

In another shocking case, an 11-year-old girl in Chennai was drugged and gang-raped in July by 17 men, ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s, who worked in the building where she lived, according to police.

Other recent alleged victims include a 15-year-old in Bihar state who told police in July she was repeatedly raped by a principal, two teachers and 16 boys over the course of six months, and a 17-year-old girl who in April accused an Uttar Pradesh legislator of participating in her gang rape over the course of nine days in June 2017.

In the latter case, the girl's father was fatally assaulted the day after she attempted to set herself on fire in front of the home of an Uttar Pradesh official. Passersby stopped her.

An Indian Muslim wearing a ribbon saying '#am I next' in a protest in Bangalore in April. (EPA)

In April, India introduced a temporary law that makes raping a minor or participating in a gang rape punishable by death. But Maliwal said on Twitter it had yet to be implemented in Delhi.