10-year-old raped in Odisha's Jajpur district days after similar incidents in Balasore, Kalahandi, Mayurbhanj rocked state

Jajpur: A minor girl was allegedly raped by a 35-year-old man at a village in Odisha’s Jajpur district, in another incident of sexual assault of minors in the state. The 10-year-old girl was allegedly raped at Malaanandapur on Friday evening and the accused was arrested and sent to jail on Sunday on the basis of a complaint filed by the girl’s father, said Prasanta Kumar Mallha, Sub Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) of Jajpur. The accused, identified as Gatikrushna Dalei of the same village, was remanded to judicial custody for 14 days after his bail plea was rejected by a court, police said. [caption id=“attachment_2883710” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] According to the complaint filed by the girl’s father, Dalei came to his house on Friday evening and took his daughter to a shop on the pretext of buying her cold drinks. “As Dalei is a fellow villager, we allowed our daughter to go with him,” he said in the complaint. When the girl did not return home after one hour, the family members started a frantic search. A missing report was filed with the Sadar police station, he said. On Saturday, some locals found the girl profusely bleeding and lying in an unconscious state in a nearby brick kiln of the village, he said. A police team reached the spot and took the girl to a local hospital. The accused was arrested after the police conducted raids at several places, the SDPO said. Police have conducted medical examination of the victim and the accused at the district head quarters hospital in Jajpur town. The accused also confessed to the crime before the police, the SDPO said. Police said the accused was arrested under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of POCSO Act. The incident comes close on the heels of a series of incidents of rape of minor girls in the state. Two girls — one aged six years and the other four years — were allegedly raped in Cuttack and Kendrapara districts on Saturday. Similar incidents had rocked Balasore, Kalahandi and Mayurbhanj districts of the state earlier.