The Chhattisgarh Police on Thursday arrested a school peon's husband for allegedly raping a six-year-old tribal girl in a government-run residential school in Sukma district last week, police said. The woman superintendent of the ashram school was also arrested for allegedly delaying reporting the crime to senior authorities and police.
The alleged rape occurred on July 22 but was reported to police only on July 24. The incident took place on the night of July 22 when the six-year-old tribal girl was in the hostel of the 'porta cabin' school located within the Errabor police station area limits. Notably, porta cabins are pre-fabricated structure residential schools set up in Left Wing Extremism-affected villages of the state's Bastar division, which includes the Sukma district.
Case registered under POCSO Act
Sukma Superintendent of Police Kiran G Chavan said that the accused has been identified as Madvi Hidma alias Raju, the husband of a peon of the residential school. The police have registered a case of rape under sections 376 AB (rape on a woman under 12 years of age), 456 (house trespass), 363 (kidnapping) and 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
He further said that an eight-member team headed by Sukma Additional Superintendent of Police Gaurav Mandal has been constituted to conduct a probe into the matter. “After questioning more than 50 persons, analysis of as many mobile phones and tower dump data and investigation of the crime scene, the police zeroed-in on the accused. The victim also identified the accused,” Chavan said.
Accused was staying with his wife in hostel
According to the official, the accused was allegedly staying in the hostel with his wife, which is not permitted because it is a girls' hostel and he is not an employee of the facility, which houses 429 girl students.
Chavan said that the investigation also revealed that hostel superintendent Heena (36) reportedly did not report the matter to senior authorities and police in a timely manner, due to which more sections of the IPC and POCSO were included in the FIR and she was arrested.
When asked if more resident students had come forward with similar complaints from the ashram school, Chavan said he and women police officials have spoken to other girl inmates of the school and enquired with them, but no other such complaint has come to the fore.
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(With agencies input)
