BAREILLY: In a case of child rape and captivity over years, a girl from Sambhal, who gave birth to four children by the time she was 16 after being trafficked at the age of 8 to a man in Rajasthan, has lodged an FIR against her father, stepmother and aunt.
According to the FIR, the girl's parents sold her to a man in
Bharatpur in 2010. Her sisters, who were six and four years old then, were also sold to people in Rajasthan, the FIR alleged. After eight years of captivity, during which the eldest girl was raped repeatedly and gave birth four times, she managed to escape from a house in Bharatpur where she was confined, and reached a relative's house in Sambhal.
Police officers lodged an FIR under sections 366 A (procuration of minor girl), a stringent and rarely-invoked section along with 372 (selling minor for purposes of prostitution) and 370 A (exploitation of trafficked person) of the IPC and have begun investigations. The girl belongs to the minority community.
"The father, stepmother, aunt and the man who bought the girl have been named in the FIR and efforts are on to arrest them," said Nakhasa police station house officer Sarvendra Kumar Sharma.
Circle officer Sudesh Kumar said, "The girl has been sent for medical examination, and prima facie appears to have been raped and has given birth."
Junaid Arshi, the man who gave shelter to the victim, told TOI, "The girl's father's sister is my acquaintance. On Monday, the aunt told me to give shelter to the girl because her life is in danger. I was shocked to hear her ordeal. The girl's father is a truck driver. He told his sister that he had got the girls married off in Rajasthan to suitable men, whereas he had sold them to men."
According to the girl, her father got married again after his first wife passed away in 2010.
"My stepmother started to torture us. We are five siblings including a brother and four sisters. I was taken to my stepmother's sister's house in Rajasthan with two sisters. I was sold to a 50-year-old man for Rs 3 lakh. I was married to him and given a new name. In six years, I gave birth to four boys. However, two of them died within months of their birth," the girl said in a statement which was recorded in a video.
