Mumbai:
Mumbai Police is interrogating a school bus cleaner after his arrest on suspicion of raping a four-year-old in the vehicle on the outskirts of the city earlier this month.
The 26-year-old was arrested over the weekend after the girl told her parents of the incident more than a week after it occurred on September 6, police said.
News of the assault comes days after four men were sentenced to death last week for the fatal gang-rape of a student on a moving bus in Delhi in December, a brutal attack that led to weeks of protests and outrage over the lack of safety for women.
Mumbai was shocked last month by the gang-rape of a photographer while she was out on assignment at a deserted textile mill with a male colleague.
According to the police complaint filed by the four-year-old's parents, she and her friend were the first to climb on to the bus after classes in the Thane district neighbouring Mumbai.
"The cleaner called her to the back seat on the pretext of showing her some tricks. He then caught the girl and raped her," said inspector SK Mohite at the local Badlapur police station.
The girl screamed and her friend went to help her, but the man threatened to kill them if they reported the matter to the school, the inspector said.
"There was no woman attendant on the bus at that time," he added.
The officer said that doctors confirmed she was sexually assaulted.
"Medical details and investigations into the cleaner's past are being gathered," he added.