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This story is from September 24, 2021

15-year-old girl gang-raped for 9 months in Maharashtra, 26 held

15-year-old girl gang-raped for 9 months in Maharashtra, 26 held
KALYAN: In a gruesome case of multiple gangrape, 29 people have been booked and 26 apprehended for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl from the suburb of Dombivli over a period of nine months. The girl has been admitted at the Kalwa government hospital in Thane district; her condition is stable.
Police said of the 26 in their custody, two are minors. The main accused is a 21-yearold named Vijay Fuke, a recovery agent for a private bank.

He befriended the girl on a social networking platform. She was raped in January this year and a video made, which was used to blackmail her into having sex with Fuke’s friends. News of the incident drew activists of various parties to Manpada police station.
Police said the accused are mostly aged 18 to 20 years; four are between 20 and 25. They are college students, school dropouts or working in low-end jobs. They hail from middle and lower middle-class families.
Additional commissioner, Thane police, Dattatrey Karale, said the main accused used the video he shot to coerce her into sexual acts with his “friends on several occasions at different places including Dombivli, Badlapur, Rabale and Murbad area.”
The incident came to light after the victim’s aunt found she was continuously getting phone calls on her birthday on Tuesday and looking perturbed. When the aunt probed the matter, she uncovered the sordid sequence of events.

The aunt shared the information with the girl’s parents and finally, with the help of an NGO on Wednesday, approached Manpada police who finally booked the accused under sections 376, 376 (N), 376 (3), 376 (D) (A) of IPC and Sections 4,6 and 10 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act.
Thane police formed a team under assistant commissioner Sonali Dhole to trace the suspects. Dhole said, “Presently 29 accused names have cropped up in victim’s statement.”
NCP’s Vidya Chavan blamed the incident partly on unmonitored use of social media by teens. After arrest, 24 of the accused were produced before a Kalyan sessions court which remanded them to police custody till September 29. The two minors were produced before a juvenile court which sent them to the Bhiwandi remand home.
Police teams are searching for the remaining culprits. Sources said some of the accused are relatives of local leaders from different parties or party workers.
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