Uttar Pradesh: Policeman arrested for alleged raping child gang rape victim

A police officer has been arrested in India on charges of raping a 13-year-old girl who had gone to his station to report that she had been gang-raped.

The incident took place in the district of Lalitpur, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

In her complaint, the girl said she was gang-raped by four men last month over several days.

She managed to escape and went to the police station last week, where she said she was raped again by the station house officer in charge.

"After the gang rape, she alleged that the police station in-charge also raped her. An FIR [first information report] has been registered in the entire case, naming six persons," Lalitpur Superintendent of Police  Nikhil Pathak told the media.

He said that teams were formed to arrest all the accused.

Additionally, 29 officials present at the police station at the time of the alleged assault have been suspended from duty.

The teenager is receiving treatment at a district hospital, officials said.

According to local media reports, the girl belongs to the Dalit community — the lowest rung of the Hindu caste system, which has a history of suffering oppression and violence at the hands of people in higher castes.

The incident sparked an uproar in the country, which has seen high-profile cases of sexual violence against women and where a woman is raped every 18 minutes on average.

"If police stations are not safe for women, then where will they go to complain?" Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a senior member of the opposition Congress party wrote on Twitter.

"Has the [Uttar Pradesh] government seriously thought about increasing the deployment of female officers in police stations to make them safe for women?"

According to India's latest crime figures, nearly 32,000 rapes or attempted rapes were reported in the country in 2020, and many more are thought to go unreported.