Three and a half-year-old girl brutally raped and left to dying

Lucknow: Her vagina is bleeding and there is a blood clot in her swollen right eye. Her neck and cheeks are scared with bites and her body is full of bruises. She is a three- and half-year-old child, who has been raped. Her father is running around in hospital holding her on his shoulder. Rahul dada has beaten me, she murmurs innocently when asked, what happened.

The incident happened in a village of Barabanki district in Uttar Pradesh. Resident Ramashray (name changed), has six daughters and one son. The youngest of them has been raped. It is alleged that a 24-year-old neighbour Rahul Chauhan is the culprit of this heinous crime. He is on the run right while the girl's family struggles with her medical complications in the King George Medical University in Lucknow.

The child's father says, "My child was lying in the forest for a whole night. One of my friends found her in the morning. She was shivering and her clothes were full of mud. She told us that Rahul had taken her to the jungle and beaten her. She told us that he had dashed her on floor and bitten her several times. Her father says, "Her reproductive organs are bleeding, we are getting her treated."

Carrying his daughter is his arms, he tells us, "If my had daughter died before giving a statement, we would never have imagined that Rahul could do this. I could never imagine he could rape my daughter."

"He was sitting with me the night this happened." He adds

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When asked, why he did not search for her daughter at night, he answered, "My family had returned from a visit to Ayodhya and everyone was tired and, in a hurry, to sleep. My wife asked her to sleep but she insisted on sleeping with me. But I had some construction work at a nearby temple. I left for the site. I don't know when Rahul took my daughter."

"Rahul had worked as a plumber in Gujrat. He returned to the village when violence erupted there against north-Indians. He used to come to my home and my youngest daughter used to call him brother. We never felt that he could do something like that." Ramashray told Gaon Connection.

The girl's mother is worried about her daughter. She says, "My daughter used to talk a lot. She is barely speaking since this has happened. Doctors have asked us not to give her anything to eat. She hasn't eaten anything since the morning."

While doctors are trying to treat her physical injuries, her mental and emotional trauma remain.

SHO Safdarjung, Barabanki says, "The alleged culprit is on the run. We are trying to find him. We have registered the case under IPC Sections 376, 363, 323, POCSO Act & SCST Act." It is important to know that under POCSO,or the protection of children from sexual offences act,a person can go to prison for 7 to 8 years once proven guilty. Section 376 is for rape and has a provision of jail up to 8 years.

Crimes of a sexual nature are becoming increasingly common these days. According to the data available with the National Crime Record Bureau, 89423 such cases came in light, 94172 in 2015, It increased to 106958 in 2016. It means that crimes against children increased by 5.4% from 2014 to 2015. Whereas the crime rate increased to 13.6% from 2015 to 2016.

If we look at the available data between 2001- 2016, Crime against children have increased from 10,814 to 1,06,958.

The child's name has not been disclosed to hide her identity. *

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