Surendranagar: The Surendranagar district police on Thursday booked a minor girl, along with her mother, for concealing the birth and death of a baby.
According to sources, the girl was allegedly raped repeatedly by a man in Ahmedabad.
The case came to light when the mother of the girl filed a rape complaint with the police on March 29.
An FIR was filed against the 17-year-old rape survivor and her mother under IPC sections 318 and 114 at a police station in Surendranagar on Tuesday.
The case was registered based on a complaint filed by a deputy superintendent of police (DySP) of Ahmedabad Rural police.
According to the FIR, “The mother, while giving her complaint about the rape of her daughter, didn’t disclose that her daughter had also given birth to a baby girl on March 24, 2023, and thus, from the very outset, her intention was to cover up the birth of the baby girl.”
The woman had earlier filed a complaint stating that a man repeatedly raped her daughter.
The Ahmedabad police had booked the accused under IPC Section 376(2)(n) for repeatedly raping the minor, under Section 506(2) for threatening the victim, and under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act on March 29. The accused was also booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
During the investigation, police found that the mother had not disclosed that her daughter had given birth to a child as a result of the repeated rapes. She also did not reveal that the accused had given the minor suvivor pills on March 23 to induce an abortion.
The FIR filed at a Surendranagar police station states that the victim gave birth to a baby girl at a primary health centre in Ahmedabad district on March 24.
The victim and her mother then took the newborn to their native village in Surendranagar district, where they buried the baby in a secluded place after she died at around 3 a.m that day.
On learning about the incident, police filed a complaint. For further investigation, the body of the newborn was exhumed on Tuesday after submitting relevant details to the office of the local magistrate.
The mortal remains of the baby were shifted to the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Government Hospital, popularly known as Rajkot Civil Hospital, in Rajkot for a forensic post-mortem.
–IANS