The four-year-old girl, belonging to the Banjara community, was found in a pool of blood near a drain and is hospitalised in a critical condition at Tarakeswar
A four-year-old girl is critical after she was allegedly abducted from a railway shed, sexually abused, and left in a bloody state next to a drain in Hooghly near Kolkata.
The girl, belonging to the Banjara community, was sleeping next to her grandmother when she was picked up on the night of November 7. She is undergoing treatment at a hospital in Tarakeswar.
The girl’s family told the police that she was sleeping on a cot under a mosquito net at a railway shed in Tarakeswar when the perpetrator cut through the cloth and took her. Her grandmother said she realised she was missing around 4 am.
“She was sleeping with me. Around 4 am, someone took her away. I didn’t even realise when she was taken. I don’t know who the people were who took her away. They cut the mosquito net and took her away,” the grandmother said.
The child was found naked in a pool of blood near the Tarakeswar railway high drain the next afternoon (November 8) and was rushed to a hospital. Her grandmother brought attention to their vulnerable living situation.
“We live on the streets because they have demolished our houses. Where do we go? We don’t have any homes,” she said.
A case was registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. But the ruling Trinamool Congress drew sharp criticism from the opposition BJP, which alleged that there was a delay in filing the FIR as the police initially hesitated to do so.
“The child was asleep beside her maternal grandmother under a mosquito net when the accused allegedly cut through it and took her away. After hours of frantic searching, she was found near a drain bleeding, unclothed, with bite marks on her cheek. Despite hours of treatment, she is still bleeding from her genitals,” said Parna Adak, Arambagh district BJP secretary.
Leader of the opposition in West Bengal, Suvendu Adhikari alleged that the police were trying to suppress the facts in the case. Calling Mamata Banerjee a “failed chief minister”, he claimed there is a “fake law and order image” in her “free-for-all regime”.
