New Delhi, April 20: The five-year-old rape victim fought for her life for 40 hours before she was finally rescued by her parents two days after she went missing, police said today.
The child, thought to be dead, was left in a 5x5 feet room with a broken glass hair oil bottle and three candles inside her private parts. She was slashed by a blade, strangled and bitten by her rapist, 22-year-old Manoj Kumar Sah, a native of Bihar.
Manoj boarded the Swatantra Senani Express and left for his home state around 8.30pm on April 15, an hour after the child went missing, investigations have revealed.
Manoj works as a daily wage labourer in a garments factory in Delhi.
Describing the chronology of the crime, Prabhakar, Delhi deputy commissioner of police, East district, said while “the mother of the girl had said she was missing from 6pm, Manoj left the house after locking the child around 7pm on April 15. He left Delhi by train at 8.30pm and reached the house of his in-laws on April 17 after a stopover at Chhapra. He was arrested at 2am today from there.”
“She was locked up, starved, raped and mutilated by Sah, who told police in Bihar that he had thought she was dead. I am not sure if he had an accomplice with him. There was a previous case of criminal trespass against him in Gandhinagar police station in east Delhi, and the case is still being tried. The owner of the house where he was staying hadn’t got him verified,” said Prabhakar. A case under Section 188 CrPC has been registered against the house owner for not getting tenant verification. Sah had rented the one-room premises just 10 days ago.
According to sources, Sah’s sister-in-law was raped and murdered a couple of months ago, but it is not clear if he had anything to do with that case.
The police today said they have slapped on Manoj sections 307 (attempt to murder), 376 (a) (rape), 362-A (kidnapping) among others of the IPC and sections 6 and 9 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.
The brutality of the crime has shocked the conscience of the country, the incident coming barely four months after the gangrape and murder of a para-medical student in Delhi last December.
But unlike the protests that galvanised the nation in December, the “common man” appears to have chosen to stay away this time.
“I was very disappointed with the turnout today. I expected many more people to be there. Today, the majority of the protesters were activists with allegiances to political parties. However, I think it’s too early to judge the reaction of the people. Even last time, the protests gained momentum after two or three days,” said 25-year-old PhD student Manjusha.
Unlike the December protests, the political class reacted swiftly this time. The demonstrators today were purely political, galvanised by Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, whose activists were seen at almost every demonstration venue.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi sent out a tough message, saying “action and not words” were necessary to prevent such incidents.
