Odisha: Gang-raped by six, minor hangs herself at home

All the accused in the rape case, including a juvenile, have been arrested.

A 16-year-old girl who was allegedly gang-raped earlier this month committed suicide at her home in Sambalpur district on Wednesday.

Protesters take out a silent candlelight march to condemn the rising number of rape cases across the country at Park Street in Kolkata on Thursday. (Samir Jana/ HT Photo)

The Class 9 student, who was allegedly gang-raped by six people on May 3, hanged herself while nobody was home. “She appeared to be under a lot of stress since the day of the incident,” said a police officer on the condition of anonymity.

All the accused in the rape case, including a juvenile, have been arrested. “We managed to file the chargesheet in 15 days because she was cooperating with us. We were in the process of getting her compensated under the Victim Compensation Scheme,” said Sambalpur superintendent of police Sanjeev Arora.

A similar incident had occurred at Cuttack in March this year, when a 17-year-old rape victim hanged herself. She alleged that the accused – a youngster from the locality – had spiked her drink with a sedative and then clicked “obscene” photographs of her.

A tribal girl who was allegedly gang-raped by COBRA paramilitary jawans had also taken a similar step in January. The girl’s mother said she was being pressurised by the police to withdraw her allegations.

A white paper recently released by the state home department revealed that the number of rape cases registered in Odisha increased from 2,144 in 2016 to 2,221 the previous year. As many as 1,283 of these cases involved minors.