A 9-year-old who was raped is battling for her life in hospital
A nine-year-old girl was allegedly raped in Delhi on Sunday evening and is battling for her life in a hospital Intensive Care Unit.
She was reportedly playing with her friends in a park near her home in north Delhi when a 25-year-old man approached them and tried to lure them with chocolates.
The girl's friends managed to run away, but she was caught by the man who gagged her, took her away and allegedly raped her. Her mother found her, not far from home, in a critical state, with the alleged rapist, Gopi Nisha Mallah. He ran away, but was arrested on Monday.
The child has been at the ICU of the Bara Hindu Rao hospital since Sunday. "The rapist should be given the toughest punishment possible," said her father.
Malha has been arrested under stringent anti-rape laws enacted in the aftermath of the fatal gang-rape of a young woman on a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012, which shocked the nation to its core and raised questions about the safety of women and children, not just in the capital but across the country.