On a day President Ram Nath Kovind promulgated an ordinance proposing stringent punishment, including death penalty, to those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years, there was a report of brutal sexual assault on a minor girl in Odisha.
The six-year-old girl was raped, strangulated and left inside a school campus at Jagannathpur village in Cuttack district presuming her to be dead on Friday evening, they said.
The girl had gone to purchase biscuits in her village but when she did not return after some time and there was a power cut, her family members set out to look for her along with villagers.
"After a frantic search for over an hour the girl was traced lying unconscious and without clothes in the school campus with blood oozing from her head and mouth," the police said.
She was immediately rushed to a nearby private nursing home from where she was shifted to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, Salepur sub-divisional police officer P K Jena said.
The condition of the minor girl is "very critical" as she suffered deep injuries in her head, face, neck and chest, doctors attending to her at the hospital said, adding there are injuries in her private parts.
A 25-year-old man of the same village was arrested today in connection with the incident, the SDPO said.
State Health Minister Pratap Jena visited the hospital and later told newsmen that a team of at least 13 doctors drawn from several departments are attending on the girl.
"The state government is bearing the entire cost of the treatment and the girl is under the special care of medicine specialists, pediatricians, psychiatrists, surgeons and radiologists in the ICU of trauma pediatric unit of the hospital," the minister said.
A case under the Pocso Act and IPC sections 376(2)(rape) and 307 (attempt to murder) was registered on the basis of a written complaint filed by the girl"s grandfather, Salepur police inspector D K Mallick said.
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 "6-year-old raped, strangulated and left bleeding inside school campus in Odisha")
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