A 16-year-old girl was allegedly raped by six persons on a boat in the pilgrimage town of Chitrakoot in Madhya Pradesh's Satna district, police said on Saturday.
The police have arrested an acquaintance of the victim and five boatmen for the attack that took place in the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, Chitrakoot sub-divisional officer of police (SDOP) Ashish Jain told PTI.
The arrested boatmen allegedly saw the other accused, a resident of Banda district in Uttar Pradesh, raping the girl near Mandakini river on Friday midnight, and they dragged the victim into the boat and raped her, he said.
The accused worked with the victim's parents in Hyderabad. The victim's parents had called him to their Satna house and asked him to get their daughter treated for colic, he said.
However, instead of taking the minor girl to a doctor, the accused raped her, the SDOP said.
The victim with her mother lodged a police complaint in the early hours of the day, following which the accused were apprehended and a case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act was registered, he said.
After their DNA and other formalities, the accused will be produced in a court on Sunday, he said, adding that the youngest of the accused was 18 years old.
Half of Chitrakoot falls in Madhya Pradesh, while the rest comes under Karwi tehsil of Chitrakoot district in Uttar Pradesh. Mandakini river originates from Satna district and flows into Yamuna in UP's Chitrakoot district.
-With PTI Input
