Bangalore:
A French diplomat, posted in Bangalore, has been booked on charges of raping his three-and-a-half year-old daughter. The case has been registered against the top official at the French Consulate in Bangalore on a complaint from his wife.
The French envoy's wife, who is an Indian citizen, said she reported the case to the police with the help of a Bangalore-based NGO after her maid told her that her daughter was being sexually abused.
She took the child to a private hospital at Hebbal which confirmed the sexual assault, said Karnataka Commission for Protection of Child Rights (KCPCR) Chairperson Nina Nayak.
The police, so far, have neither detained nor arrested the French official. They are verifying the evidence and analysing medical records and eye-witness accounts.
"A case of child abuse has been registered. We are investigating ... we have interrogated a few people. We have not arrested anybody," said Ravikant Gowda, DCP, Bangalore Police.
"By now, he should have been arrested and his passport seized. The medical examination of the child confirms sexual abuse so he does not deserve diplomatic immunity," said the lawyer for the wife of the accused French envoy.
The wife of the French diplomat has written to the Home Ministry and the Minister of External Affairs, asking them to put restraining orders on the envoy so that doesn't leave the country till the legal proceedings get completed. In her letter, she has asked the government that not under any circumstances should her husband get the custody of their three children, who are French nationals.
The French consulate has declined to comment on the matter.