Bhopal: A local court here on Thursday evening witnessed a heart-rending sight with a three-year-old girl, a “rape victim”, seen fiddling with a paper boat all through the proceedings involving her and her mother’s deposition in the case, apparently being oblivious of the tragedy that had befallen on her.
The toddler was seen completely engrossed in playing with a paper boat she was holding. She occasionally also looked at the ink on her fingers applied by the court officials to take finger prints.
Her nervous looks and blank stares during her deposition turned the court proceedings into a somber affair.
“She was a very lively and vivacious girl before the incident. She now appears completely nervous,” the child’s kin who were accompanied her told the media here.
“We are devastated,” they said. Her parents learnt about sexual abuse of their child, a nursery student, when they visited a doctor after they noticed her injuries.
They later approached the Kolar police station here to register FIR against the accused, Ashutosh Pratap Singh who ran the preschool.
But, they were turned away by the in-charge of the police station Gaurav Singh Bundela and the FIR was registered three days later on February 27 following intervention of a senior police officer. The accused was arrested on March 1 and remanded to police custody till March 14.
Incidentally, a video showing the accused in the company of the station house officer of the police station Bundela, has gone viral forcing the authorities to shun him.
According to the preliminary medical examinations the girl was raped. Meanwhile, the Madhya Pradesh human rights commission has sought a report from the police seeking an explanation on the delay in registering an FIR in the case.
