According to the Police, a 17-year-old boy was arrested under POCSO Act for allegedly sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl, who, later died after she reportedly fell off a tractor driven by the boy’s brother, in Dindigul. The police also arrested the tractor owner and the suspect’s brother under the Motor Vehicles Act and Section 304 (ii) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC, respectively. The minor girl had gone missing while playing near her home and was later found dead in agricultural land with multiple injuries at Vedachandhur on Sunday.
Dindigul: 6-yr-old Dies after alleged Sexual assault
According to sources, the girl was a Class I student and was sexually assaulted by the suspect twice, on January 30 and February 2. On February 2, when the girl was playing near her house, the suspect allegedly took her into a nearby grove and allegedly raped her. The child did not tell the incident to her parents. The same evening, when the girl was playing along with some children, the younger brother of the suspect, a 15-year-old boy, happened to pass the spot, driving a tractor. The boy was asked by one Uma Sekar to drive his tractor from a farm to his house.
According to the boy, the children wanted a joy ride and thus he allowed them aboard. It is said that the girl slipped off the moving vehicle and sustained head injuries. On information, the tractor owner rushed the girl to Government Vedachandur Hospital, where doctors found injuries on the girl’s private parts as well. They referred the girl to Government Dindigul Hospital, where doctors declared the child ‘dead on arrival’.
Meanwhile, the girl’s parents and relatives protested alleging that the child was sexually assaulted and murdered demanding immediate arrest of the accused.
As the postmortem examination suggested that the girl was sexually assaulted, the Koompur police personnel and Superintendent of Police R Sakthivel investigated the case and arrested the boy who had sexually assaulted the girl. He was booked under Sections 5 (m) (penetrative sexual assault on a child below 12 years) and 6 (punishment for aggravated penetrative sexual assault).
