13-year-old abducted, gang-raped by 9 men in MP

In a heart-shaking incident, a 13-year-old minor girl in Madhya Pradesh's Umaria district was abducted thrice and raped several times by nine men within five days in the Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh. The incident happened at a time when the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government is running ‘Samman,’ a fortnight-long public awareness drive on crime against women across the state.

According to media reports, the minor girl was first kidnapped on January 4 and then raped by the abductor and 6 of his friends for two days. They left the girl on January 5 before threatening to kill her if she informed the police about the matter.

The horror was recasted within a period of six days, when she was again abducted and raped by the previous accused persons. Later, she was allegedly raped by two truck drivers before finally fleeing back to her house on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Madhya Pradesh police on Saturday arrested eight people on charges of abducting and gang-raping a 13-year-old girl. They were arrested under section 376 (d) (gang rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under relevant section of Protection of Children from Sexual Offence.

Earlier, a report by National Crime Records Bureau claimed that Madhya Pradesh continued to hold on to the dubious distinction of having the highest number of rape cases registered in the country for the third consecutive year in 2018.

As per the report, the state accounted for 16 per cent of the country's total 33,356 rape cases registered in 2018. As many as 5,433 rape cases were reported in Madhya Pradesh in 2018. The data was revealed by NCRB earlier this month.

NCRB is a government agency responsible for collecting and analysing crime data across the country. In 2017, the number of cases reported in the state was 5,562 cases. The number of rape cases in the state has gone up in 2018 as compared to 2016 when 4,882 cases were reported.