Delhi: 10-year-old raped, brutalised, left to die

NEW DELHI: A 10-year-old girl was raped, beaten up and left to die on the footpath near the Smriti Van park at Kondli in east Delhi on Thursday night.

The child was found unconscious by her mother who took her to LBS Hospital. The doctors informed police around 10.20pm. She was referred to AIIMS for treatment where her condition is said to be serious. Police arrested a 24-year-old youth for committing the crime late on Friday.

In her statement, the mother said that she found her daughter lying at the bottom of the staircase of an abandoned building near the park, bleeding. Passersby offered her water to clean the child’s wounds. “We registered a case of attempt to murder and under POCSO Act. We questioned a few security guards in the area to identify the assailant,” said DCP (east) Pankaj Singh.

The girl used to beg at the traffic signal near Mayur Vihar Phase-III, while her mother sold toys at another signal. She stayed with her sibling and mother on the footpath near the paper mills in Ghazipur Mandi. They had come to Delhi a week ago from Gonda district in Uttar Pradesh.

Doctors told police that the girl has severe injuries on her face and arms and bite marks all over her body. She was brutally raped due to which she has injuries on her private parts as well. They added that she was responding to the treatment and had become stable late in the evening. However, she would take a few more days to be fit for giving a statement to police. She has been kept under observation in the ICU.

A senior police officer said that the accused is an alcoholic and lives in Khoda colony of Ghaziabad bordering Delhi. On interrogation, the accused, Manik Cham, said that he cleans cars for a living. He was going home after having liquor when he saw the child and decided to rape her. He took her to the abandoned DDA building and brutally assaulted her.

Locals said, though there are lights and security guards, there are many areas around the park that remain dark. “Patrolling by police is also limited. The assailant may have taken advantage of this,” said Inder Kumar, an elderly resident of a nearby apartment who goes for an evening walk there. There are no CCTV cameras focusing on the spot where the child was found.