13-year-old in Yamunagar allegedly sexually assaulted by four men

A 13-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by four men near a temple in Haryana's Yamunanagar on Sunday.The girl was sleeping with her siblings at home when four men barged in and kidnapped her, reports news agency ANI. The men took the girl to a temple nearby and allegedly gang-raped her, and smashed her head on the wall before fleeing. Reports suggest, neighbours found the unconscious girl in the temple premises.The girl's parents who were not at home at that point filed a First Investigation Report under the stringent law against child sexual abuse."The medical test of the girl has been done... we have registered a case and an investigation is underway. A search operation is on to catch the culprits," said the station house officer of Yamunanagar police station.The teenager's assault in Yamunanagar comes a day after three girls were raped and four minors were sexually assaulted in separate incidents in Uttar Pradesh. Three cases were reported in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur, Amroha and Kannauj districts and a fourth one was reported in Muzaffarnagar. In Rampur and Amroha, the accused were juveniles, between 11 and 12 years, said the police.

President Ram Nath Kovind on Sunday signed the executive order to pave the way for providing stringent punishment, including death penalty, for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years. The Union Cabinet on Saturday at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had approved the ordinance.The changes to the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act were cleared by the government amid nationwide anger triggered by gory details of the gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua.