Eight men were arrested for allegedly gang-raping a 16-year-old girl in Maharashtra’s Palghar district on Sunday.
According to the Palghar police, on Saturday afternoon, the victim›s family lodged a complaint at the police station that the girl had not come home since 8 o›clock on Friday. The police immediately filed a complaint and got involved in the investigation.
On Saturday evening, the girl was found in a forest by the seashore, the police said.
According to police, the girl told them that she was taken by one of the accused on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday to a vacant bungalow in the Satpati›s Mahim area where the eight men sexually assaulted her.
“In her complaint lodged on Saturday, the victim said her ordeal began at 8pm on December 16 that continued till 11am the next day,” a police officer said. Later, they also took her to the seashore where they again sexually assaulted her in the bushes,” the official added.
A case of gang-rape has been registered against the accused at Satpati police station, a spokesperson of Palghar district rural police said. Based on her complaint, the police arrested the eight accused in the early hours of Sunday and registered a case against them under various Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections, including 376 (D) (gang-rape), 366 (A) (procuration of minor girl), 341 (wrongful restraint), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), and sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the police said.
