Rape or accident of 2-year-old? Police wait for medical report

Gurgaon: A two-year-old girl, who her family alleges was sexually assaulted on the compound of a condominium’s annexe in Sector 81 last Saturday, was first spotted by a neighbour near the wheels of a truck that had been hired by another family that was moving house.
The child was unconscious, the neighbour told this correspondent on Monday. He found her there around 2.20pm.
The truck was parked next to flats in a separate section of the society that has affordable flats and a separate entry, where a guard is posted.
According to residents, the child, like most other kids, would play in the corridor of their flat or on the compound when her mother went to work as a house help in the condominium.
While the truck driver, who has been accused of rape by her mother, was questioned on Monday, he is yet to be arrested as the police await medical reports and establish the sequence of events.
The girl’s mother filed a complaint the same day, after which a case was filed under provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. In her complaint, she said her daughter was playing outside their flat around 2pm when the truck drove into the premises and parked near her. The mother said there were injuries in her private parts.
The neighbour who spotted the child didn’t immediately realise she was unconscious. He said he feared she would come under the wheels of the truck, which was about to move, and ran to pick her up. “As soon as I saw the child there, I rushed. I tried to get the attention of the driver, but he drove off without bothering to check. As she was not responsive, I enquired about her parents from children playing nearby. The child’s sister, who was there too, pointed me towards their flat on the third floor. I dropped the girl off at her flat and also informed the guard. Later, she was taken to hospital,” the neighbour said.
SHO of Kherki Daula Rajender Kumar told TOI police had scanned footage from CCTV cameras installed in the complex.
While she is visible in most of the footage from that time window, the SHO said there is a gap of around 2 minutes during which she was not in the view of any of the cameras.
“In the CCTV footage, she is spotted near the truck at 2.17pm on Saturday. Two minutes later, at 2.19pm, she is found by one of the residents. We have investigated the crime scene and taken statements from eyewitnesses. Both point towards an accident and that she got hurt from an angle iron of the truck. However, swab samples have been collected both from the victim and the suspect and sent for forensic investigation. We will proceed further in the matter once we get the forensic report,” the SHO said.
The girl, who was taken to Civil Hospital in Gurgaon initially, was referred to Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital. She continues to be under medical supervision there but is stable. “When the patient was brought to our hospital (on Saturday), there were injuries in her private parts and the case was referred to Safdarjung hospital,” a doctor at Civil Hospital said.