Mid-Day reports that a mentally challenged girl in Mumbai's suburbs was waylaid by a man, raped and then thrown out of his house. The report adds that the 18-year-old, a resident of Malad East, was raped thrice in three years when she was a minor by gangs of men. Eleven men who had raped her in the past are in jail charged with kidnapping and gangrape and other sections under the POSCO Act.
According to a report on the Free Press Journal, the girl was gangraped twice in July and October in 2017 and once before that in 2016. In the complaint she lodged at the police station in 2017 October, the survivor's mother said that she worked as a domestic help and as a result had to leave her mentally challenged daughter alone, often locking her from outside.
"My daughter was inside the house, when I had locked the door from outside to ensure she does not go out. When I returned home from work on September 28, my daughter was not at home. We searched for her was not traceable," she said in her complaint in 2017. Two auto drivers were arrested in connection to that case.
On 14 November, Mid-Day reports, the girl went missing from home. Anxious family members went to the police when they couldn't find her anywhere, but were turned away by them. Reportedly, the police asked them to search elsewhere or in house of acquaintances and only lodged a formal complaint seven days later, when she could not be still found.
Meanwhile, her family, Mid-Day reports looked for her everywhere they could think of, including the Aksa-Dana Pani beach where assailants had raped her in the past. However, they could not find her. Later, after police started looking, the girl was traced sitting on the stairs of a temple in Versova Beach.
While she was in no condition to speak to the police, she later narrated her ordeal to her elder sister. The girl had reportedly gone to Aksa beach, because of the proximity to her house where the man called Raju approached her. He then waylaid her and took her to his house in Versova. He later bought her clothes, jewellery and a mangalsutra and 'married' her in a temple. After taking her home, he raped her and next day drove her out of his house, after taking away the mangalsutra and the jewellery.