Schoolgirl, 14, ‘raped and buried alive SURVIVES after her parents hear her cries for help’
A SCHOOLGIRL raped, bludgeoned and buried alive survived her ordeal after her parents heard their daughter’s desperate cries for help.
The 14-year-old girl was attacked close to her home by a 35-year-old neighbour, allege cops, after she went out to switch off a farm motor.
The tragic teen was raped, before being thrown into a ravine and buried alive with stones and thorny bushes.
The sick attacker saw the schoolgirl alone as she ran the errand in her village in the Betul district of India’s Madhya Pradesh region at around 5pm on Monday, say officers.
He then launched the nightmare ordeal on his young victim, said Betul Superintendent of Police Simala Prasad.
When she didn’t return home, the girl’s worried parents and sister began a desperate search for their daughter, reported .
CRIES FOR HELP
The family searched in the darkness, until they heard “cries” and whimpering coming from a ravine close to their farm.
“She had gone out at around 5pm, and when she did not return after a few hours, her family began searching for her,” said Mahendra Chouhan, officer-in-charge at nearby Sarni police station.
“They heard some cries near a nullah – or ravine – close to their farm. In torchlight, they followed the cries and found the survivor.”
The family managed to free the girl from the pit and rushed her to a nearby medical centre, before she was referred to Nagpur Medical College, around 120 miles from her village, because of the severity of her condition.
She was “semi-conscious” when she was first taken to doctors, added officer Chouhan, and told cops she knew the rapist.
“One team took the survivor to hospital and another team was dispatched to arrest the accused,” he added.
“He was caught within hours and her condition is stable.”
The alleged rapist has been arrested and booked for rape, as well as charged under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, he said.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE
The SC/ST Act – also known as the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act – is supposed to prevent exploitation and sexual violence against people from lower social castes in India.
The alleged rape is the latest in a series of brutal attacks on young girls from India’s Dalit community – formerly known as ‘untouchables’ – who are at the bottom of the country’s strict caste hierarchy.
The group has traditionally been physically and socially excluded from mainstream society, and faced discrimination in all parts of their life.
In India, it is not possible to move between different ‘castes’.
In November, a 16-year-old was raped as she took her little brother to a public toilet in her village.
A month earlier, a 12-year-old girl was found to be pregnant after being repeatedly raped by three of her cousins.
And in September, protests erupted after a 20-year-old Dalit woman died from her injuries from being gang-raped by four upper caste men while she was out working in the fields.
Just two days after her death, a 22-year-old woman from the same caste was allegedly raped, tortured and murdered by two men on her way home from work.
In September, a 13-year-old Dalit girl was raped and killed in Uttar Pradesh.
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Rape and sexual violence has been under the spotlight in India since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman in the capital Delhi, which prompted thousands demanding stricter laws.
Prison sentences for rapists were doubled to as well as well as criminalising voyeurism, stalking and trafficking of women.