E-Paper
Migrant labourer held for six-year-old girl’s rape in Ludhiana
Worked at a Samrala Chowk factory. Police commissioner writes to court to fast-track case to act as a deterrent against such heinous crimes
The 22-year-old migrant labourer, who was on the run after raping a six-year-old girl on Saturday, was arrested on Sunday.
He was identified as Bablu Kumar, a native of Mehrajganj district of Uttar Pradesh, and currently living alone in a rented accommodation in Ashok Vihar on Tajpur Road.
Police said Kumar was arrested from Samrala Chowk when he was about to board a bus to flee to his native.
Kumar was absconding since raping the minor girl, daughter of labourers living at Bhamian village, Jamalpur.
Inspector Harjinder Singh, station house officer, Jamalpur, said on Saturday, residents of the colony where the incident occurred, had nabbed the accused after the victim was found at a vacant plot. But, he had managed to flee before the police reached the spot.
“However, before he escaped, residents got his name and mobile number from him. The number given by the accused was last used in 2018. After scanning CCTV footage from nearby areas and conducting multiple raids and enquiries, we found he worked in a factory near Samrala Chowk,” the SHO said.
On Sunday, police received a tip-off that he was trying to flee the city, and managed to arrest him from Samrala Chowk. The accused was produced in court, and remanded to two-day in police custody.
‘WANT DEATH SENTENCE FOR HIM’
Meanwhile, commissioner of police Rakesh Agarwal said they had written to the district and sessions judge to fast-track the case, so it acted as a deterrent against similar crimes.
The victim’s family, unable to come to terms with the incident, said they wanted capital punishment for the accused.
On Saturday, the victim underwent a 90-minute surgery for severe injuries on her external genitalia, rectum, anal canal and perineum. The child had sustained grade-three perineal tear (laceration of the skin that separates the vagina from the anus).
KIDNAPPED VICTIM FROM HER HOUSE
The accused had kidnapped the girl from the labour quarters in Bhamian village, Jamalpur, during the wee hours of Saturday while she was asleep with her mother.
On finding her daughter missing, the woman had raised the alarm, prompting neighbours to launch a search. The child was later found bleeding at a vacant plot, a few hundred metres away from her house. She was rushed to the Ludhiana civil hospital where she underwent surgery.
On the basis of the complaint by the victim’s mother, a case under Sections 364 (kidnapping or abducting in order to murder) and 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code, and Section 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act was registered against the accused at the Jamalpur police station.
