8-Year-Old Girl Allegedly Gang Raped, Naked Body Found On Railway Tracks

The naked body of an 8-year-old girl was found on the railway tracks in India on Thursday morning. The victim's family alleged the child was gang raped and murdered.

The girl had gone out of her home in a village in the state of Bihar Wednesday night to search for her father, the Times of India reported.

“When she didn’t return home, we searched for her throughout the night and recovered her naked body on the rail track early on Thursday morning. She was gang raped before being murdered,” the victim's relative alleged.

A senior police official, identified as Krishna Prasad, said they too didn’t rule out possibility of rape. Prasad added an investigation is underway into the incident. No arrests have been made so far in the case, and the police also did not name any suspects.

The horrific incident triggered protests from hundreds of residents of Chandrapura and nearby villages. Protesters blocked roads demanding justice for the minor girl, local media Hari Bhoomi reported [Google Translation showed] The gathering of people took place amid Covid-19 restrictions put in place as the country has been recording more than 300,000 cases per day since April 21.

Authorities said the police teams from several stations had to struggle for hours to remove the angry protesters from the rail track and road so that they could remove the body of the victim from the site.

According to a National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report released last year, India recorded 88 rape cases every day in 2019. The data showed the rape vulnerability of a girl or woman increased up to 44 percent in the last 10 years.

Earlier this month, a 15-year-old girl accused her father of repeatedly raping her and thrashing her multiple times. The victim also said her father bit off her nose. The incident took place in the western state of Rajasthan. On April 6, the girl was admitted to a hospital where she told an activist about her ordeal. The father was booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code.