UP: Minor girl alleges she was raped by SHO when she visited police station to file gang-rape case
Lalitpur (UP), May 4: A 13-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped by four people, was raped again by the Station House Officer (SHO) of a police station where she had gone to file a case, officials said on Wednesday.
The police have arrested three of the accused after an FIR was registered against five people, including the SHO, who has been suspended and is presently absconding, they said.
Senior police officials said the FIR was lodged based on the complaint of the victim.
"The FIR was lodged under various sections of the IPC, including 363 (kidnapping), 376 (rape), 376 B (intercourse by public servant with woman in his custody), 120 B (conspiracy), POCSO Act and SC/ST Act," a police statement said.
According to the victim's mother, her daughter was taken to Bhopal on April 22 by four men and was raped there for three days. The accused left the girl at the Pali police station, where she was allegedly raped by the SHO.
The girl reached a childline NGO later and narrated the whole incident during counselling.
The NGO approached the Superintendent of Police, after whose intervention, an FIR was registered on Tuesday.
"The police have arrested three accused, while attempts are on to nab others, including the SHO," Superintendent of Police Nikhil Pathak said.
The Samajwadi Party attacked the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government over the incident, asking where should "daughters go" and "whom to trust" in this government.
"The biggest question in the BJP government is whom to trust and whom to not. A minor, who reached the police station to file rape complaint was raped by the SHO himself.
"Now the CM should tell, where should victim daughters go? Security of the victim should be ensured and strict action should be taken against those found guilty," the party said in a tweet in Hindi.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is expected to go to Lalitpur to meet the rape survivor's family.
Attacking the state government in series of tweets, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said, "The incident of gangrape with a 13-year-old girl in Lalitpur and then rape by a police officer after taking a complaint shows how the real reforms of law and order are being suppressed in the noise of "bulldozer". If police station are not safe for women, where will they go with their complaints."
"Has the UP government seriously thought about increasing the deployment of women in police stations, making them safer for women? The Congress party had in its women's manifesto had made many important points for women security..Today its Lalitpur...", she said.
To prevent such incidents, serious steps should be taken for women's safety and women friendly law system, she added.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
