12 year old mentally challenged raped by neighbor and friends recorded it on video

NEW DELHI:  The family of a 12-year-old girl in west Delhi was horrified by a video they received on WhatsApp last Saturday. The video reportedly showed their child, who is mentally challenged, being raped allegedly by their neighbour the day before. Amid nationwide anger over the recent cases of rapes of children, including the Kathua and the Surat cases, Delhi police arrested three men on Monday.

A young man, identified as Bunty, and two of his friends were arrested on Monday night from Mangolpur Kalan area in Delhi's Rohini suburb. Police said Bunty lured the girl to a community center in their neighbourhood, took her to a secluded spot and raped her. The two friends who accompanied him took a video as he committed the horrific act, police said.

The spot where the man allegedly raped the girl was identified from the video made by his friends.

"Bunty has been booked for rape and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), and his friends under the relevant sections of IPC and the IT Act for their involvement in the crime," the police officer said.

The girl's family alleges that they are facing pressure from the family of the accused to withdraw the case.

"Bunty is a powerful person and his other family members have strong hold in the area. They are mounting pressure on us to withdraw rape case against Bunty after his arrest. They are also pressurising us to leave the locality," the child's mother was quoted by news agency IANS.   

What triggered the countrywide protests and anger - both on the streets as well as online - over the weekend was when the gruesome details of the kidnapping, gang-rape and murder of an eight-year-old in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir in January, emerged last week. In Surat, the body of a young girl who was raped, tortured and murdered, was found on April 6. Days later, another child, an eight-year-old girl attending a wedding with her parents was raped and strangled in Uttar Pradesh on Monday