School peon's husband arrested for rape of girl in Chhattisgarh; hostel staffer held for late reporting of crime to police

A 35-year-old man was arrested on Thursday on the charge of raping a class 1 girl in the hostel of a government-run residential school in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district last week, police said.

The accused is the husband of the school hostel's peon, they said.

The woman superintendent of the school's 'ashram' (hostel) was also arrested for allegedly delaying reporting the crime to senior authorities and police, an official said.

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The incident took place on the night of July 22 when the six-year-old tribal girl was in the hostel of the 'porta cabin' school located within the Errabor police station area limits.

The rape accused has been identified as Madvi Hidma alias Raju, the husband of a peon of the residential school, Sukma Superintendent of Police Kiran G Chavan told reporters.

After a police complaint was filed on July 24 in connection with the offence, a case was registered under sections 376 AB (rape on a woman under 12 years of age), 456 (house trespass), 363 (kidnapping) and 324 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

An eight-member team headed by Sukma Additional Superintendent of Police Gaurav Mandal was constituted to conduct a probe into the matter, he said.

“After questioning more than 50 persons, analysis of as many mobile phones and tower dump data and investigation of the crime scene, the police zeroed in on the accused. The victim also identified the accused,” Chavan said.

The accused was allegedly staying in the hostel with his wife, which is not allowed as it is a girls' hostel and he is not an employee of the facility which houses 429 girl students, the official said.

The investigation also revealed that hostel superintendent Heena (36) allegedly did not report the matter to senior authorities and police at the appropriate time, in view of which more sections of the IPC and POCSO were included in the FIR and she was also arrested, Chavan said.

The SP said he and women police officials have spoken to other girl inmates of the school and enquired with them, but no other such complaint has come to the fore.

The hostel's superintendent and assistant superintendent have been suspended for allegedly delaying reporting the matter to the police, a district administration official earlier said.

Porta cabins are pre-fabricated structure residential schools set up in Left Wing Extremism-affected villages of the state's Bastar division, which includes the Sukma district.

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Chhattisgarh has slammed the ruling Congress over the incident and claimed the law and order situation has collapsed in the state.

The BJP has also constituted a probe team of the party leaders, headed by its woman MLA Ranjana Sahu, that visited the residential school on Wednesday.