Mumbai: The Pune police on Wednesday arrested an 18-year-old boy for allegedly raping an eight-year-old girl at a temple in Pune on Saturday. The accused was on the run after committing the crime. A local court remanded the accused, Rohan Bhalekar, to police custody for four days.
Sridhar Jadhav, a police inspector with the Pimpri police station, said, “The eight-year-old girl was playing near a temple in Pimpri. Her mother is a domestic worker and her father is a labourer.
On Saturday, the accused was alone in the temple. He spotted the girl playing near the temple and he took her inside the temple and raped her. He left inside the temple and ran away.”
According to the police, the girl’s mother later went to the temple looking for her and found her crying. On being probed, the victim narrated her ordeal. The mother immediately approached the police to register a First Information Report against the accused on Saturday. The accused is school dropout and he along with his mother cleans the temple for a living. The temple where the rape took place is at Kharalwadi area in Pimpri.
The victim was admitted to a hospital and she is recuperating well, the police said.
Mr Jadhav said, “We have booked the accused under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The accused managed to run away on Saturday and we had been searching him.” He said, “Our team arrested him on Wednesday morning. He was produced at the Morwadi Court which ordered four days police custody.
