Man held for sexually assaulting six-year-old stepdaughter

In a shocking case, a six-year-old girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by her stepfather in South Delhi's Saket area on Tuesday. The police was informed after a neighbour of the girl spotted her with blood on her dress.

The girl has been transferred to a hospital and is undergoing counselling to help her recover from the shock. The police have arrested the accused under appropriate sections of the IPC and POCSO Act.

On Tuesday, when the girl was playing in her neighbourhood with other children, the neighbour saw that the girl was under a lot of pain and had started vomiting.

When the neighbour inquired into the incident, she found that the girl was bleeding from her private parts. When the woman approached the girl's mother, the latter allegedly told her that it was a family matter and asked her not to interfere.

"The neighbour, who was sitting outside the house and watching the children play, reported the matter to us. She said that the mother had refused to entertain her requests to take her to a hospital," said a senior police official privy to the investigation. The woman soon called the women's helpline number 181 and soon police started to formally investigate the matter. The police managed to take the girl to a local hospital where it was confirmed that she was sexually abused.

"In her statement, the girl alleged that her stepfather took her to a house in Saket where he worked as a cook and allegedly sexually assaulted her. She said that when she tried to raise an alarm, he told her he was doing it for her good," the official added.

According to the police, the man had allegedly attempted to rape the girl earlier too. On Tuesday, he took her with him on the pretext of showing her his workplace.

Police said he knew that he would be alone at the place as his employers were not there.

"He took that opportunity to assault the girl and then told her he would kill her and her mother if she dared to reveal it to anyone," the official said.

During his interrogation, the accused claimed that he was under the influence of alcohol.

He had married the victim's mother, who belongs to Uttarakhand, a year ago after eloping with her, said a official of the Delhi Commission for Women privy the case. "The woman (victim's mother) is seven months pregnant and the man has a five-year-old son from a previous marriage," the DCW official claimed.

An NGO has been roped in to counsel the girl. She was admitted at the Trauma Centre to undergo a surgery for removal of an infection from her private parts.