A five-year-old deaf and mute Dalit girl was allegedly raped by a man living in her neighbourhood in Madhya Pradesh's capital Bhopal, police said on Saturday.
The police have arrested the 56-year-old accused for the incident, which took place in the Kolar area on Thursday evening, inspector Chandrakant Patel of the Kolar police station said.
An offence has been registered against the accused under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and he has been sent to judicial custody, he said.
According to the police, a neighbour informed the girl's parents that their daughter's cries could be heard from the accused man's house on Thursday evening.
The child's mother immediately rushed to the man's house and was shocked to see him sexually assaulting her daughter, they said.
The police were immediately informed and the child through signs with the help of her mother narrated her ordeal to the police.
The victim has said that the accused took her into his house on the pretext of playing with her, police said.
On running a test, it was found that the accused was drunk when he committed the crime, the official said.
Meanwhile, the authorities demolished the accused man's illegally constructed house in the Kolar area on Friday.
The BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has been demolishing illegal structures of perpetrators of heinous crimes to send out a tough message.
(Inputs from PTI)
