Differently-Abled Minor Girl Raped By Neighbor, Incident Recorded By Suspect's Friends

A differently-abled minor was raped by a neighbor in Delhi, India. The suspect also recorded the heinous act with the intention of blackmailing the family of the victim.

The incident took place April 13, and the victim's family was alerted to it when they received a video, sent via WhatsApp the following day, which showed the minor being sexually assaulted.

While many of the local reports have mentioned the age of the victim as 14 years, a few have reported it as 12. Her identity is being withheld, in accordance with Indian laws on publishing names of minor victims in rape cases.

Also, according to some unconfirmed reports, the video in question was circulated on social media. It is not known exactly which social media platform(s) were used to do so.

The suspect was identified as 30-year-old Bunty. He, along with two friends, who witnessed the crime and helped record the video, were arrested by the police Monday night from Mangolpur Kalan area in Delhi's Rohini suburb.

"Bunty has been booked for rape and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), and his friends under the relevant sections of IPC and the IT Act for their involvement in the crime," the police officer said, NDTV reported.

The police was also able to identify the place where the crime took place after analyzing the video sent to the victim’s family.

The POCSO act was passed in 2012 in India to defend children below the age of 18 from various kinds of abuse, according to National Commission for Protection of Children Rights.

POCSO ensures “healthy physical, emotional, intellectual and social development of the child. It defines different forms of sexual abuse, including penetrative and non-penetrative assault, as well as sexual harassment and pornography, and deems a sexual assault to be ‘aggravated’ under certain circumstances, such as when the abused child is mentally ill or when the abuse is committed by a person in a position of trust or authority vis-à-vis the child, like a family member, police officer, teacher, or doctor.”

The victim’s family claimed they were facing pressure from the suspect’s family to withdraw the case filed against the accused.

“Bunty is a powerful person and his other family members have strong hold in the area. They are mounting pressure on us to withdraw rape case against Bunty after his arrest. They are also pressurizing us to leave the locality," the child's mother said.

The current incident comes at a time when people of India are already reeling under the gruesome details of two minor rape cases — the gang rape of eight-year-old Asifa from Kathua district in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir and the alleged rape of 17-year-old girl from Unnao in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, by a lawmaker and his brothers.

Apart from the fact that both victims were minors, what triggered a political storm and nationwide public debate on the matter is that it took months for the cases to gain significant attention and compel the law enforcers to conduct proper investigation.