Girl raped, eyes damaged to prevent culprit’s identification

Damoh (Madhya Pradesh), April 24 (IANS): In a heart-wrenching incident, a 21-year-old person allegedly raped a seven-year-old in a village in Madhya Pradesh’s Damoh district on Wednesday night. The rapist damaged her eyes to prevent her from identifying him, said district police chief Hemant Chauhan who rushed to the spot on Thursday morning.

The accused, Sachin Sen, was arrested by Thursday evening, said Chauhan. He said the girl’s eyes were safe and she was showing satisfactory progress.

Former Chief Minister Kamal Nath in a tweet criticised the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government for the collapse of law and order even through the rigidly-enforced lockdown. Such henious crimes are taking place at a time when people are not allowed to move out even to meet their basic requirements, he said.

Thursday’s incident is the third in the state in the past one week. The crime scene in corona times has added to the women’s woes. On April 17, a 53-year-old blind bank official was raped by a youth. Though the police made a list of possible suspects, no further action was possible as they could be hiding in a corona containment area. The police can’t be exposed to the infected areas, an official said.

On Tuesday a teenaged girl who along with a friend was on her way to a local hospital, when she was dragged into a car and was taken around eight kms and raped with no police force checking the culprits. The girl is reported to have named Shafiq Khan and his friend Abid Khan who has been booked under POCSO Act.

In the Damoh incident, the accused inflicted injuries on the girl’s face. Police rushed the victim in a critical condition to a hospital in Jabalpur where her eyes were operated upon, Chauhan told the media over phone. According to the girl’s family members, she went missing while playing with friends on Wednesday evening. Her family kept looking for her till midnight before reporting the matter to the Jabera police early on Thursday when the child was found in a dilapidated house about 50 metres away from home with her hands and feet tied.

“As soon as the police got the information, they reached the spot and rushed the girl to a hospital in Jabera tehsil from where she was taken to Jabalpur for better health care,” Chauhan said. Jabera MLA Dharmendra Singh also reached the spot.

In another case, a youth hanged himself to death late Wednesday night near Rajgarh after a policeman allegedly threatened to implicate him in a rape case.

The youth reportedly recorded his suicide and the video went viral. The youth, Ramswaroop Lowanshi, accused a policeman, Sarpanch and a BEO of demanding Rs 5 lakh from him, failing which they would slap a case under POCSO against him.

Ramswaroop, a resident of village Talavada Maharaja of Malawar police station, hanged himself at around 1 am on the night intervening Wednesday-Thursday. The video alleged Assistant Sub-Inspector Sharma of Malawar police had accused his friend Golu in a rape case. Ramswaroop said Malawar Sarpanch Devi Singh, the BEO whose name was not mentioned and the ASI had said they would implicate him along with Golu unless he paid Rs 5 lakh to them. He said Golu had already paid them a huge amount. Ramswaroop said he did not have money. Therefore, he had decided to end his life. No one in his family should not be harassed over the matter, he requested.

On Thursday morning, Biaora MLA Govardhan Dangi and former District Congress President Ramachandra Dangi went to the police station and demanded action against the policemen. Assistant Superintendent of Police N.S. Sisodia rushed to investigate the matter. Police station in-charge Nagendra Singh and ASI Sharma have been suspended.