Constable, friend held for raping minor

New Delhi: A 12-year old girl on Thursday was allegedly raped by a traffic police constable and a property dealer.

Constable Sanjeev Rana and his accomplice Naresh Mann allegedly abducted Asha (name changed to protect identity) from Shahbad Dairy locality in north Delhi. They later and dumped her at the same spot.

“They shut my mouth and told me if I make any noise, they will kill me,” she alleged.

Asha’s father Radhe Shyam says he lodged a police complaint as soon as he learnt what happened.

“My daughter came crying. I asked what happened and who the men were. Then I called the police,” he said.

Rana has confessed his crime and has been dismissed. He and Mann have been sent to 14 days of judicial custody. But the area residents are still unhappy.

“If the men responsible for our security become threats themselves, it is obvious that people will lose faith in the police. These men pick up girls after taking drugs but why don't they do so with their own mothers and sisters,” an angry resident said.

Of the 147 women, who have been raped in the capital in 2008, at least four are minors.

And the grim statistics draw angry reactions from the Minister of Women and Child Development.

“The raped minor has been subjected to a punishment for life and I don’t see why the culprit shouldn’t be subjected to the same,” Chaudhary said.

Increasingly more crimes — one incident more heinous than the other — continue to mar the reputation of Delhi.

NATION’S SHAME

Cases of policemen turning rapists are regrettably nothing new. They've been around for decades now. The real shame of course is that nothing seems to have changed.

The case of a 16-year-old tribal girl, who was raped by two Maharashtra policemen in 1974, shook the nation's conscience and forced rape laws to change in 1984. In court, the lawyers questioned the girl's character to defend the policemen, which led to outraged protests. As a result now the court now presumes the victim's word to be true

More recently, the rape case that shocked the nation was in April 2005 in Mumbai where a drunken policeman raped a girl inside a police station on Marine Drive. Constable Sunil More was sentenced to 12 years of rigorous imprisonment.