Two 5-yr old girls raped in west Delhi 

Three five-year-old girls playing at a neighbourhood park near Tilak Nagar in west Delhi were lured to a nearby house with sweets and sexually assaulted by at least four men on Monday evening, according to the police. The families of the girls said the victims had also been threatened with knives and slapped repeatedly. "Medical reports have confirmed that two of the girls were raped. It seems that in case of the third girl the men tried to rape her but were not successful," the Delhi Police said in a statement on Tuesday No arrests had been made more than 24 hours after the incident, which occurred at Khayala Colony near Tilak Nagar. 

Two of the girls were admitted to the intensive care unit of the Deen Dayal Upadhaya Hospital , where doctors said their condition was grave. Family members said the girls were bleeding heavily when they were found. “The men threatened them with knives, slapped them and drenched them in cold water to frighten them,” the mother of one of the girls told HT. The police were looking for a 21-year-old man, Vikram, a tailor. “It seems three persons along with Vikram were involved, but we are still not sure how many men assaulted the girls,” said a police officer. The police said the crime took place on the first floor of a four-storied building owned by Vikram’s father Bholanath. A portion of the house was occupied by tenants. A neighbour said Vikram was to get married in April, and his parents were away from Delhi . The children were found by one of the tenants in the building, who grew suspicious on hearing screams from the first floor. The assailants released the children when the tenant came to enquire. The girls were found soon after “We were searching for them after they did not return home from the park. While crossing Khayala Colony, one of us spotted my niece. She was crying,” said the uncle of a victim. Vikram and his friends escaped from the house as a crowd started gathering, said the victims’ families. The area was tense on Tuesday.

More than 70 per cent of the rape victims in the past two years were minors, according to Delhi Police records n in 2006, 473 of the 599 victims were minors; in 2005, the figure was 481 out of 660 m The police say in most cases the accused were known to the victims.  

(Source-Hindustan Times, March 28, 2007)