Seven men have been arrested for allegedly kidnapping and raping a 13-year-old girl in Maharashtra’s Pune, the police said today.
The girl has been admitted to a hospital and is undergoing treatment.
The incident happened on the night of August 31, when the girl was waiting for a friend at the Pune Railway Station and an auto-rickshaw driver spotted her.
After the girl’s friend failed to turn up, the driver allegedly offered her a ride home, saying it was late in the evening. He then called some of his friends to accompany them, the police said.
The accused then drove around the city, gang-raping her at multiple locations. They later forced her to board a Mumbai-bound bus.
After a missing persons case was filed at Wanwadi police station by the girl’s father, the cops started looking for her, deputy commissioner of police in Pune Namrata Patil said.
“We found her in Pune and after recording her statement, we arrested the accused. She is stable now,” the official added.
“During the investigation of the missing person complaint, we traced the girl on Sunday. The girl told the police that she was abducted and raped,” Wanwadi police station senior inspector Deepak Lagad told news agency PTI.
The police are also looking for some of the other accused involved in the case, officials said.
A case has been registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and further investigation is on, the police said.