Panaji, Sept 26 (PTI): In a new twist to the triple rape case in which a man is accused of sexually assaulting his minor daughter, sister-in-law and mother-in-law, it has now come to light that the grandmother of the minor had allegedly tried to sell her earlier.
The 30-year-old accused, an unemployed man living with his in-laws in Margao town near here, was arrested last week for allegedly raping his daughter and the two women relatives over the last six months and threatening them with dire consequences.
"There were complaints that the minor victim's grandmother, who is allegedly one of the victims of rape, had earlier tried to sell the girl to someone. Some NGOs were earlier roped in to rescue the girl," Karthik Kashyap, Superintendent of Police (Women's police station), told reporters today. When asked about the allegation by the mother-in-law (60) of the accused that Mapusa police shooed her away when she had approached them to lodge a complaint against the accused for raping her granddaughter, Kashyap denied any negligence by police.
"The local police had called for the Victim Assistant Unit comprising an NGO (that) to rescue the child (after her grandmother had complained that she was raped in the past) butbut the girl refused that she was sexually abused," he said. He said that comprehensive investigations are being conducted in the case.
"Though in the past the minor girl had refused that she was raped, we are conducting the investigations with the consideration that she was sexually abused," Kashyap added.
According to the complaint filed last week by the 60-year-old woman, the accused had raped her after he took her to a forest in Pernem taluka of North Goa. The accused had also raped his sister-in-law (wife's sister) several times and also sexually abused his minor daughter.
A case under section 376 (rape) of Indian Penal Code, section 8(2) of Goa Children's Act and various sections of Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act had already been registered against the accused whose name is withheld by police to protect the identity of the victims.