UP: 17-year-old girl 'sold' by parents, gang-raped for months by in-laws

In a shocking incident reported from Uttar Pradesh, a 17-year-old girl, who was repeatedly raped by her in-laws and fled a forced marriage, was freed from a passenger train that came to Rajasthan's Kota, said police on Sunday.

The teenage girl was set free from the Gorakhpur Avadh Express train by the Railway Protection Force (RPF). Later, she was presented before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).

The girl was in a state of shock, however, with the help of counselling, she gradually started talking about her experiences.

According to the victim, she was a second-year BA student in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoria. Her parents and uncle got her married against her will on 30th November 30, 2020, to a person from a neighbouring village.

The victim alleged that following the wedding, she was frequently raped by her husband’s brother and sister-in-law’s husband. When she told the matter to her husband and father-in-law, the men said that they had bought her from her uncle.

They gave the orders to her to do whatever was asked.

According to the victim, when she denied, her husband and father-in-law took her to an unknown place where her brother-in-law and husband of her sister-in-law took turns to rape her for months.

Furthermore, the victim claimed that they made a video of her while she was bare and uploaded it on social media. The girl in some way managed to run away from the captivity and went to her uncle's house in Deoria.

The victim told her uncle to register a case against her husband and in-laws but was allegedly kept back from doing so. As she understood her uncle was not prepared to lend a helping hand, she ran away from there on 7th April and took the train the following day.

The Travelling Ticket Examiner on the train suspected that the girl had run away from her house and instantly alerted the Railway Police.

After listening to the girl’s ordeal, the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) took notice of the matter. It also launched prosecution against the victim's family members who allegedly "sold" her into a marriage and against her in-laws for physical abuse.

The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) has sent the victim to a shelter home. It has also written to the authorities concerned in UP to lodge a case against the accused in the case.

Also Read: Antilia bomb scare: NIA arrests Sachin Waze's associate API Riyaz Qazi for destroying evidence