13yrs-old Girl Gang-Raped By Four Men, Gets Raped Again By A Officer Who She Reported To

Reporting a case of rape to the police by the victim seems not to be a wise thing to do anymore in a society filled with rapists.  A  13-year-old girl who went to a police station to report that she had been gang raped by four unidentified men was raped again by the police officer she reported it to, authorities say.

The police officer, Station House Officer; Tilakdhari Saroj, was later arrested after being caught on the run in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where the crime is alleged to have taken place.

The father of the girl revealed to police that four men had lured his daughter away to the neighboring state of Madhya Pradesh on April 22 where they raped her over the space of four days.

The men then brought the girl back to her village in the Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh (UP) before fleeing.

According to the report filed by the police, the girl went to the police station the following day to make a statement accompanied by her aunt. Saroj then took the girl into a room and raped her in front of the aunt, the report says.

He was later arrested after being caught on the run in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh

Lalitpur district police chief Nikhil Pathak told reporters that the NGO Childline brought the girl to his office after she told them her story.

‘The SHO is suspended and he is a named criminal so we have formed teams to arrest him,’ he said. ‘After I was informed of it, I ensured that a case was filed.’

Saroj has been charged under the stringent POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses) Act brought in 2012 which could see him face life in prison if convicted.

According to ANI UP/Uttarakhand Saroj is quoted as saying:

‘Investigative agencies should be called in to conduct the probe into the matter with utter honesty. After the investigation, if it’s proven I’m guilty then…I am 100% innocent.’

Pathak added that six people were named in the case and four had been arrested, including Saroj, and all officers serving in the police station have been removed.

The case has caused predictable outrage in the state of Uttar Pradesh and across India itself.

State authorities have ordered a probe into the case to report back in 24 hours, while the National Human Rights Commission, India, has demanded a report from the Government of Uttar Pradesh within four weeks.

Congress leader; Priyanka Gandhi Vadra slammed the Uttar Pradesh state government in a tweet.

‘The gang-rape of a 13-year-old girl in Lalitpur and then her rape by the police in charge when she went to file a complaint shows how genuine law and order reforms are being suppressed in the noise of ‘bulldozers’.

‘If police stations are not safe for women, then where will they go to take complaints?’ she said.

The POCSO Act was brought in in 2012 after a young woman was gang raped on a bus in New Delhi in a case that shocked the world and put the spotlight on how rife acts of sexual abuse are in India. The young woman later died of her injuries.

A survey in 2017 by World Vision India found that as many as half of children in India have been a victim of sexual abuse at some point in their lives.