Father, please give her away, says Uttarakhand teen rape victim of her child

A 15-year-old Uttarakhand girl allegedly raped for several months by a school teacher has urged her father to give away her baby, who was born last week.

The alleged rape victim gave birth to a girl last week, a little over two months after the pregnancy was discovered by her family who took her to hospital for stomach pains.

“Papa isey kisi ko de do, ye mere bas ki nahin hai (father, please give her away, I can’t handle all this),” the girl’s father quoted her as saying.

The girl belongs to a village in Tehri district.

“She’s been quite distressed,” the father, who is a farmer, said. The family has for the time being summoned a cousin of the victim to help take care of the child.

The childbirth has hit the girl’s preparations for her board exam.

Parmesh Kumar, a 57-year-old history teacher at the government school she went to, has been accused of sexually assaulting her several times.

The pregnancy was discovered in mid-September and doctors then said an abortion was not possible since the pregnancy was in its seventh month.

The police, meanwhile, have said that they’ll go ahead with a DNA test to establish the paternity of the child. “We will get the DNA test done (to match the DNA of the child with that of the accused) soon so that we can build a strong case against the accused,” Manoj Negi, station house officer of Kempty police station, told HT.

Once formalities are done, the child may be given up for adoption through the child welfare committee if the family wishes to, he added.

Kumar is accused of having also threatened the student with harm if she revealed about the alleged sexual assault.

He is currently in prison, slapped with charges under sections 376 (rape), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 328 (causing hurt by means of poison) of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.