Patna: A teenaged girl was dragged out of a passenger train and allegedly gang-raped by four youths at a cremation ground in Bihar. The incident took place while the victim was on the way to her relative’s home on Thursday night but the case was reported to the police on Saturday.
Police said the Grade eight schoolgirl, a resident of Bhojpur district, was going to her aunt’s home in the neighbourhood by train on Friday night when some youths dragged her out of the bogey at Hasan Bazar railway station. They made her board a car and drove to an isolated place near a cremation ground and raped her. After committing the crime the youths fled the scene with the stern warning to shoot dead her lone brother if she reported the matter to anyone.
The girl somehow reached her home the next day but remained tight-lipped for the next two days out of fear of the rapists. On being supported by her relatives, she finally went to the local police station on Saturday and registered a case against four youths. Some of the accused persons are her own neighbours, police said.
“We are conducting raids to nab the absconding accused persons. They will be caught soon,” the local Bhojpur district superintendent of police Awakash Kumar told the media on Sunday.
The incident comes barely too day after reports emerged of a school principal repeatedly raping a Grade five schoolgirl in his official chamber for months, leaving her pregnant. The school is located in the Phulwarisharif locality of Patna town. The police have arrested the principal and sent him to jail.
The incident came to light after the victim girl complained of abdominal pains to her parents after which they took her to a local doctor. During the check-up she was found to be pregnant for three weeks.
Police said the accused principal had made a secret bed room inside his official chamber where he would rape the girl. According to police, the principal had also made a video of the dirty act which he threatened to upload on social media if she dared to disclose it to anyone.
The incidents of rape have become a matter of concern in Bihar. According to an official report, a total of 782 incidents of rape have been reported till June this year which mean at least four girls are being raped every day in the state. Last year, altogether 1,198 incidents of rapes were reported, preceded by 1,008 in 2016, 1,041 in 2015, 1,127 in 2014 and 1,128 in 2013.
Earlier, 927 cases were reported in 2012, 934 in 2011, 795 in 2010, 929 in 2009, 1,041 in 2008, 1,122 in 2007, 1,083 in 2006 and 973 in 2005 — the year when chief minister Nitish Kumar came to power dethroning 15 years of Rashtriya Janata Dal regime promising to establish “rule of law” in Bihar.
