4-yr-old boy booked for raping classmate in Delhi

A  four-and-a-half-year-old boy has been booked for raping a classmate on the premises of a private school in West Delhi.

The Delhi Police registered a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act against the boy after the girl's mother lodged a complaint.

The incident took place in the school, located in Dwarka, last Friday.  The victim's mother claimed that the boy had used his fingers as well as a sharpened pencil to sexually assault her daughter  in the classroom and washroom.

Though a case has been registered against the minor boy, the police said the incident has raised a question if he could be prosecuted for the offence under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

"The IPC provides children below seven years of age certain protections against prosecutions. We are examining those provisions, even as we are handling the matter with utmost sensitivity," Delhi Police spokesperson Dependra Pathak told mediapersons.  An NGO has been roped in to counsel the boy, he added.

According to the victim's mother, she came to know about the incident after her daughter returned from school and narrated what happened  to her at night while writhing in pain because of "some injuries she had sustained in her private parts".

"She (the victim) tried pushing him (the juvenile in conflict with law), but could not get away as the other children had left and there was no staff around," the mother stated in her FIR  to the police.