Four arrested for raping three minor sisters for five months

Aged 17, 16 and 15 years respectively, the girls were produced before the Child Welfare Committee and sent to a children’s home for rehabilitation

MUMBAI: Four history sheeters who allegedly kidnapped three minor daughters of a liquor addict and raped them repeatedly over a period of five months were arrested on Sunday by the Nalasopara police. Aged 17, 16 and 15 years respectively, the girls were produced before the Child Welfare Committee and sent to a children’s home for rehabilitation.

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According to the police, the girls lived in Nalasopara with their parents. “Their father worked as a watchman. He was an alcoholic and used to assault their mother regularly. So, she fled from home, leaving the three teenage daughters to take care of themselves,” said a police officer.

The girls too were fed up with their father’s abusive behaviour and were allegedly kidnapped by the main accused Datta Shirsagar around five months ago, said police. Shirsagar and his three accomplices – identified as Mohammed Ibrahim, 24, Nishad Khan, 19, and Sayyed Khan, 20 – then raped the girls multiple times.

On Sunday, the father of the girls approached the police with a missing complaint, based on which a case was registered. After an informer tipped the police that the girls were seen with Shirsagar, who was out of jail on bail, they raided the accused’s house in Nalasopara East and found the three minor girls there.

After the girls narrated their ordeal, police registered a fresh case against Shirsagar and his three accomplices under sections 340 (wrongful confinement), 376 (rape) and 363 (kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. All four accused were then arrested.

Meanwhile, a priest was arrested in Goregaon for allegedly molesting a five-year-old girl on June 12. The girl’s mother had seen the priest, identified as Shivam Pandey, touching her inappropriately after he asked her to enter the temple where he was employed through the back gate. She then alerted the other devotees who called the police and got the priest arrested.