A 24-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping and raping a minor girl at his residence in suburban Bandra west, under the pretext of marriage, the police said here today.
According to the Bandra police, the accused, one Sarju Gupta, was arrested yesterday, after the survivor's parents complained to the police that he abducted their 17-year-old daughter and sexually abused her.
In her complaint, the survivor's mother alleged that the accused knew the girl who stays in the vicinity for the last one-and-a-half years and regularly met her after promising to marry her.
"The accused had met the survivor at a marriage ceremony, after which he befriended her," a police official told PTI, adding that the girl eloped with Gupta on May 18.
"Gupta convinced the girl, saying that nobody would oppose their marriage. Later, he took her to his house where he sexually assaulted her on different occasions. The girl's mother had filed a missing person's complaint on May 18 after she could not be traced," the police officer said.
However, the girl returned home yesterday.
After her mother prodded the girl, she broke down and revealed her ordeal, which led the survivor's mother to file a rape complaint against the accused, who was arrested by the police yesterday.
The accused has been booked under Sections 376 (Punishment for rape), 363 (Punishment for kidnapping) of the Indian Penal Code, besides relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
