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A 17-year-old girl was sexually abused by a 22-year-old man on several occasions after she refused to marry him, leading to her confinement for three days until her arrest and subsequent jail time in Lakhimpur Kheri on Saturday. Authorities claim that as the victim was being beaten and mistreated, the accused wrote the letters of his name, “Aman,” on her face using a hot iron rod.
According to her family, the police first filed a case under “lesser” offenses such unlawful confinement and deliberate injury. However, once the survivor’s statement was recorded in front of a magistrate under Section 164 CrPC, provisions of the Pocso Act and rape were added to the FIR.
SSP (Kheri) Ganesh Saha stated that he refuted the family’s claims, explaining, “We registered an FIR based on the family’s complaint. A video statement of the girl was recorded, where she did not make such serious allegations. We are uncertain why her statement changed in court. However, we have initiated our investigation based on her allegations. The accused has been apprehended.”
Dinesh Singh, SHO (Dhaurahra), stated, “The man works at a salon in Hyderabad and is a school dropout.” When the girl declined his proposal of marriage, he inscribed his name on both of her cheeks. When she and her family arrived at the police station, we filed a formal complaint. We couldn’t tell if she was a minor because she didn’t have identification on her. Along with the Pocso Act, we have now introduced IPC sections 324 (voluntarily causing harm with a dangerous weapon) and 376 (rape).
