Kamal Ghorui
HYDERABAD: A 16-year-old schoolgirl missing from her home in Narsingi since Monday was found confined to a flat in Chengicherla and raped by three, including two juveniles. Police rescued her on Wednesday.The 24-year-old accused, who has a suspect sheet against him, has been sent to jail and one of the minors has been remanded in a juvenile home. Third accused is on the run.
The survivor, a Class 8 student, was familiar with the arrested juvenile who worked as a salesperson at a footwear shop in Charminar. She had first met him on Feb 7 and later stayed in touch over the phone. On Feb 16, after school, she went to Madina to meet him.Later in the evening, the two other accused joined them and took the girl to an empty apartment in Chengicherla. There, the three allegedly assaulted her and forced her to consume alcohol at knife point.“During medical examination it was found that the survivor suffered injuries to her private parts,” police said.The matter came to light when the survivor’s mother approached police to file a missing person’s report early on Tuesday. She said the minor, who lived with her maternal grandmother in a housing society in Narsingi, where the grandmother works as a caretaker, left for school at 8 am on Monday but did not return home.“My daughter usually gets home by 4 pm. But when she did not come back, my mother alerted us. We rushed from Shaheen Nagar to her place and searched for her in the surrounding areas. We also made enquiries with relatives and her friends, but could not locate her,” the girl’s mother stated in her complaint.Based on the complaint, police registered a kidnapping case under section 137(2) of BNS and started an investigation.Using CCTV footage, mobile phone data and local inputs, police traced the girl and two suspects to a govt double-bedroom flat in Chengicherla.“The 24-year-old accused is a habitual offender with eight previous cases, including robbery, theft and assault. He also has a suspect sheet against him at Rein Bazaar police station,” said Ch Srinivas, DCP, Serilingampally, adding that they will seek custody of those arrested for further questioning. The survivor’s statement will also be recorded before the magistrate.It would have been extremely difficult for police to track down the survivor had it not been for a call she made to the juvenile offender from a local shopkeeper’s phone in Narsingi. “We tracked that number to locate the survivor and eventually rescue her,” an official said.
