Jodhpur minor gang-raped on govt hospital premises, 2 held
A 15-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by two men on premises of the government-run Mahatma Gandhi Hospital at Jodhpur in Rajasthan, police said on Tuesday, adding two suspects have been detained.
A 15-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by two men on premises of the government-run Mahatma Gandhi Hospital at Jodhpur in Rajasthan, police said on Tuesday, adding two suspects have been detained.
Deputy commissioner of police (west) Rajarshi Raj Verma said the incident occurred hours after the girl left her home in anger on Sunday evening after being scolded by her mother. When the family could not locate her till late Sunday night, they filed a missing person’s report at the Soorasagar police station.
On Sunday night, the two accused approached the girl after finding her alone on the hospital premises. “They engaged her in a conversation and led her to a secluded area behind the hospital’s biomedical waste dumpyard, where they allegedly raped her,” the DCP said.
Verma said that on Monday evening the police received information about a girl wandering around unattended in the hospital, following which a team was sent to the hospital. When the police reunited the girl with her parents, she narrated her ordeal to the family and the police.
“After recording her statement, an investigation was launched and the girl underwent a medical examination,” the DCP said. “On Tuesday morning, a forensic team visited the hospital premises to collect evidence from the scene.”
On Tuesday afternoon, the police detained two suspects for questioning after identifying them through the CCTV footage from the hospital, Verma said. “The victim’s statement will be recorded before a magistrate, after which an identification parade will be conducted to confirm the suspects. Based on the results of this process, the suspects will be formally arrested,” the DCP said, adding both suspects were employed with the hospital as contractual cleaners.
A case of gang rape under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act has been registered, the officer said.
Dr Fateh Singh Bhati, the superintendent of the Mahatma Gandhi Hospital, said the hospital staff have been directed to check the lighting in the area where the incident occurred. “Measures are being taken to enhance security, including installing additional lights,” Bhati said.
The incident, which came amid a nationwide outrage over the rape and murder of a 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor at the West Bengal government-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, has triggered a political uproar, with the Opposition Congress attacking the Rajasthan government over increasing rape cases in the desert state.
“The gang rape of a minor girl at Mahatma Gandhi Government Hospital in Jodhpur is yet another example of the growing lawlessness in Rajasthan,” senior Congress leader and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot said in a post on X. “It seems neither the public representatives nor the police in Jodhpur are paying any attention to law and order, which is emboldening criminals day by day.”
Gehlot accused the ruling BJP of “misgovernance”, saying it has ruined Jodhpur, a city known for its “peaceful and crime-free environment”.
Reacting on the incident, BJP spokesperson Mukesh Pareek said: “It is an unfortunate incident. The government will take necessary step against the culprits. We are also putting efforts to reform the law-and-order situation which was completely devastated during the Congress rule.”