An eight-year-old schoolgirl was allegedly raped by an 11-year-old boy and his two younger brothers at a government school in the Ramala region of Baghpat in India.
Reports say that the girl, who was in third year, was raped by the eldest brother, who was in year six.
The ordeal happened in the toilet of the primary school.
The father alleges that the two younger brothers were also with the 11-year-old at the time, according to the Baghpat Superintendent of Police (SP), Pratap Gopendra Yadav.
‘Whether they were also involved or not is a matter of investigation,’ SP Yadav added.
The SP also noted a number of failings on the part of the village police service in investigating this case.
The Ramala police refused to respond to a Freedom of Information Request for two weeks and the village’s head of police, or Station House Officer (SHO), tried to pressure the family to drop the charges, according to Gulf News.
The SHO was removed by the SP on Monday.
‘We sent the girl for medical examination on Tuesday and the report is awaited,’ the SP said.
‘Once she is stable we will get her statement recorded in the court and further action will be taken.’
He added that the ‘SHO Naresh Kumar was not supposed to engineer a compromise’ but was supposed to arrest all of the accused.
The schoolgirl’s uncle said that they were asked to keep quiet by the local police and by the village elders. He added that when he reported it to the teacher she ‘behaved as if nothing had happened.’
‘During all this, the girl’s health was continuously deteriorating,’ he added.
According to a recent report compiled by gender experts, India is the worst place to be a girl in the world, outranking Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. This is due to the poor treatment of women and the high rates of sexual violence in the country.
The government has tried to tighten laws, instituting the death sentence and lengthier prison terms, but it has had little effect.
Out of 30,000 rape cases in 2016, the most recent statistic, only one in four resulted in a conviction, according to Times of India.
