8-yr-old, selling flowers at signals, raped by driver in Raipur

Raipur: In a shocker from the state capital, an eight-year-old minor girl, who sold flowers or begged at traffic signals, was raped by a 20-year-old youth on the pretext of taking her to a restaurant for a meal. It was alleged that the accused youth picked up the minor girl in his car from a prominent location of Raipur on Wednesday.After receiving word of the incident, the police took the accused into custody and rescued the survivor in the wee hours on Thursday. The youth was accompanied by a juvenile aged 17 while he was taken into custody for questioning, police said.Like a regular day, the minor's homeless family residing on the roadside was waiting for her to return to have meals, hoping she would bring back some pennies by selling flowers to motorists stopping at traffic signals. Her family members would often watch her from a distance, pleading with passing commuters and motorists at signals to help her grab a bite by buying her flowers.At times she would make enough money by herself to grab a meal, while at other times, someone would take pity on her and walk her to a nearby food outlet, with other homeless children accompanying her. Sharing details of the incident, the police said a hatchback driven by the accused, stopped at a signal on Wednesday night. The minor, who was standing by with her flowers at the time, ran up to his car, pleading with him to buy the last few petals she had.However, the youth, instead, offered to drive her to a ‘nice restaurant' nearby and buy her a meal. She fell for the lure without giving it a second thought, probably because she was with a minor friend at the time, the police said.After driving a few kilometres towards a dark and isolated road, the youth asked the minor and her friend to get out of the car, telling the latter to fetch her some food from a nearby eatery. He then drove ahead to a corner of the road and allegedly raped her. Meanwhile, growing concerned as she didn't return, her family approached the nearest police station and lodged a missing complaint.The anti-crime and cyber unit was activated, even as the police scanned CCTV footage, tracing the car moving into the Zora area of Raipur. After an intensive search spanning about 3-4 hours, the girl was found abandoned on the roadside and was rescued. What happened to her in the preceding few hours couldn't be determined, as the girl was still in shock and unable to narrate what she went through, the police said, adding that the accused, meanwhile, was arrested from Siltara region for suspected abduction and rape and booked under provisions of POCSO Act and BNS, while the minor boy was detained under Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act.The accused worked as a driver for a travel agency, the police said.The incident comes just two weeks after a nine-year-old girl was raped over five days by a 65-year-old kirana store owner in Raipur. The accused was arrested amid a protest by locals, while his house and grocery store, which were deemed illegal by the local municipal corporation, were razed.