3, including 2 women, booked for sexually assaulting minor girl in 2021

Mumbai: Three persons, including two women, have been booked for allegedly sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl twice in Kurla in February 2021

Mumbai: Three persons, including two women, have been booked for allegedly sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl twice in Kurla in February 2021.

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After the incident, she did not tell anyone and started receiving treatment for depression in Mumbai and Kerela. The girl, now 18 years old, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in the city, approached the VB Nagar police to file an FIR.

According to the police, the incident happened once when the girl’s mother, a nurse, had gone for her night-duty shift, and the second time it happened, the mother was in Kerala to solve a property dispute.

Out of the two accused women, one is her mother’s friend, said the police, adding the woman not only allegedly sexually assaulted the victim but also forced her to sleep with some men, threatening her with her photographs, but the girl had refused.

“The girl stays with her mother in Kurla, her father passed away in 2018. While they were staying in Kurla from February to April 2021, her mother worked a night shift as a nurse with a hospital in the Eastern suburbs,” said the police officer. “Her mother’s 53-year-old female friend, a resident of the same area, used to visit her and stay with her during the night,” said the police officer.

Later, the 53-year-old mother’s friend would invite her 50-year-old women friend from Sion for sleepovers. “They used to order food and cold drinks online and have dinner together. One day, the victim realised, that after dinner and the cold drink, she started feeling too drowsy. Midnight, she woke up and realised the two women were touching her private parts, however, she was not able to oppose them as she was too drowsy,” said the police officer.

After the incident, she went into depression and could not talk about the abuse to her mother. Later, in September 2021, she went to Kerela with her mother to help settle a property matter.

“However, her mother asked her to go back to Mumbai in 2022 for her education and to rent a house near her friend’s house,” said the police officer.

She then started staying in a rented premises, where the two women would come to sleep in the night. “After some days, a 42-year-old man, a male friend of the accused also started coming to her home at night. The two women threatened and lured the minor girl with money to sleep with him, however, she refused and threatened them that she would tell everything to her mother. They also threatened her that they had her photos, which they would circulate online,” said the police officer.

After all this, the girl went into depression and was treated at various hospitals. “Now she started feeling better and initially approached the Kerala police, who asked them to approach Mumbai Police as the crime happened here. We will carry out an inquiry and then make arrests,” said the police officer.

The accused have been booked under section 376 (rape), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), and 34 (common intention) of IPC and sections 4 (punishment for penetrative sexual assault), 8 (punishment for sexual assault), and 12 (sexual harassment) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.