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Chandigarh court holds two uncles guilty of rape of 10-year-old

October 31, 2017 07:04 PM



Chandigarh, A fast track court in Chandigarh on Tuesday held two maternal uncles guilty of raping a 10-year-old girl. The court will pronounce the quantum of punishment on Thursday.

The victim gave birth to a baby girl on August 5 after the Supreme Court turned down her plea for abortion.

The uncles, both brothers, had been accused of raping her over five months. Both hail from Nepal.

The police had initially arrested one uncle based on the victim's statement. However, when the DNA of the new born girl child did not match with that uncle, the case took a curious turn.

The Chandigarh Police, which launched re-investigation into the matter, arrested the second uncle in October, nearly two months after the rape victim delivered the child. The DNA of the second uncle matched with the new born.

The Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL) report, which was submitted before a trial court here in October, has pointed out that the DNA sample of the child and the alleged rapist (uncle) did not match.

The girl had told her parents and police investigators earlier that her maternal uncle (cousin of her mother) had raped her. She identified the accused.

The victim's plight made national headlines after the Supreme Court on July 28 disallowed her advanced pregnancy to be terminated. The victim delivered a girl child in the Government Medical College and Hospital in Sector 32 here on August 17.

The girl's pregnancy was discovered in July after her parents took her to the hospital when she complained of stomach pain. They discovered that the girl had been repeatedly raped by her uncle over seven months.

A medical board, set up by Chandigarh's Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) on the court's orders to examine the pregnant child, warned that an abortion would risk the girl's life.

The order came on a PIL by advocate Alok Srivastava, who moved the top court after a plea for the medical termination of pregnancy was refused by a district court in Chandigarh on July 18.

The plea was made while pointing out that the victim's body was not ready for child birth.

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