12th standard girl dies after gang-rape in Uttar Pradesh

The brutal gang-rape of a 12th standard student, suspected to have taken place late on Saturday, has fuelled tension in the communally sensitive town of Faizabad, 125 km from here.

Police found the severely bruised and disfigured victim on the side of the busy Lucknow-Gorakhpur National Highway in Barabanki district after a tip-off from a nearby eatery.

The victim was holding on for her life when she was rushed to hospital and later succumbed to her injuries. Sources said the culprits had beaten the victim repeatedly with a heavy object, pulled out her hair and broken few of her teeth. Before she died, she managed to reveal to the police the names of the four people who had allegedly gang-raped her.

Since the alleged rapists belong to a different community, the incident triggered tension in Faizabad with markets and business establishments remaining closed on Monday in protest.

As news of the incident spread, members of a community held demonstrations on the streets and demanded the arrest of the culprits. Security personnel were deployed to the town in strength and senior officials were monitoring the situation, sources said.

While the kin of the victim alleged that she had been kidnapped when she went to buy household items on Saturday evening, police officials claimed that the girl was having an affair with one of the culprits and might have been killed in the middle of a dispute.

With police officials believing that only one person was involved in the incident, the girl’s family has demanded a CBI probe. The police arrested one of the alleged rapists, identified as Nadeem, who lives in the victim’s locality.

Nadeem reportedly told the police that he was having an affair with the victim and that he had thrown her out of a speeding vehicle on the highway after she insisted that they marry and go to Delhi. He said that the girl might have been crushed under the wheels of the vehicle.