Rapists throw girl off train

Ramashankar, TT, Patna, June 18: A Class XII student was allegedly gang-raped and thrown off a train in Lakhisarai district of Bihar in the wee hours of yesterday.

The 16-year-old girl has serious injuries below the waist and is battling for life at Patna Medical College and Hospital.

She was found unconscious near Kiul station in Lakhisarai district and admitted to the local sadar hospital. When her condition worsened, doctors referred her to hospital.

"Her condition can't be described as out of danger at this stage," medical college principal S.N. Sinha said this evening. He said the girl's thigh bone had fractured.

Doctors at the Lakhisarai sadar hospital said the girl needed 24 stitches on her private parts.

The girl in her statement to the police said that two men abducted her around midnight on Friday when she had gone to attend the call of nature. The two men and five or six others who joined later raped her in a nearby field, she said, after which they blindfolded her and boarded a train.

The men raped her in again the running train, the girl said.

"They were murmuring maar do ise (kill her). Someone pushed me from the running train (Maurya Express). After that, I don't recall anything," she is learnt to have told a police team led by Lakhisarai deputy superintendent of police Pankaj Kumar.

She told the cops that two of the men were neighbours, and named them.

Lakhisarai superintendent of police (SP) Ashok Kumar said one of the two named accused - a juvenile - has been taken into custody and raids are under way to nab the others.

The cops said the girl was raped, but denied her version of a gang-rape.

The SP asserted that one of the two named accused, Mritunjay Yadav alias Bothi, was the girl's boyfriend. "He is absconding," SP Ashok said.

When told about the 24 stitches on the survivor's private parts, the SP did not answer.

The SP said he has directed Chanan police station house officer (SHO) S.K. Jha to submit a requisition to the hospital to set up a medical board for the medical examination of the victim.

The medical college principal, however, said he had not received any request for a medical board (usually set up to thwart any controversy over examination of a victim).

"If I receive any such request, there will be no delay on our part," principal Sinha said.

SHO Jha said the girl's medical examination report from the Lakhisarai sadar hospital is awaited.

The SHO also tried to explain the incident as "a fallout of love affairs". He said the girl had run away from home because her father had beaten her up after catching her with her boyfriend.

"In most rape cases, police often attribute the reason either to love affairs or consensual sex to undermine the seriousness of the offence," said Patna-based social activist Rajiv Kumar Singh. "It's a common practice in the state to suppress such sensitive cases."

Chief minister Nitish Kumar inquired about the incident from top police officials today, sources said.