On Friday, the 14th of July, police arrested a woman and her second husband for committing a heinous crime on two minors. Reportedly, a case has been filed against them under the stringent POCSO Act.
It is alleged that the mother surrendered her two minor daughters to her second husband in an attempt to safeguard her marriage with him. Subsequently, the minor victims gave birth to their step-father’s children. This horrifying incident took place at Pedapadu Mandal in Eluru district.
According to the police, the 42-year-old accused impregnated his 17-year-old stepdaughter and also forced sexual relations with her 16-year-old younger sister.
As per PTI, a police official said, “Instead of playing the role of a father, that person (stepfather) has committed sexual assault on both girls.”
According to Disha police inspector Indra Srinivasa Rao, the accused woman was married in 2004. Later, she gave birth to two daughters, but due to ill health, her husband passed away in 2007. Afterwards, she married her paternal aunt’s son in 2010.
According to the information received, she underwent birth control surgery and could not get pregnant again. Following this development, her second husband allegedly kept threatening to leave her and marry another woman. To safeguard her marriage, the biological mother of the victims gave consent to her second husband to have children with her minor daughters once they attained puberty.
Reportedly, she then compelled her elder daughter to have sex with her second husband, that is, her stepfather. In 2017, the teenager gave birth to a baby girl.
When the stepfather wished to have a boy, the biological mother surrendered her younger daughter to him. One year later, the younger daughter gave birth to a baby boy but the infant died soon after. Her mother and stepfather threw the body of the deceased baby into a canal.
However, both of them had some differences and the woman went to her mother’s home in Visakhapatnam. When Eluru SP D Mary Prashanthi received confidential information about the criminal incident, she directed the Disha police inspector to investigate the matter.
Later, the younger daughter shared her ordeal with the police officials. She stated that she and her sister have been sexually assaulted for years. The step-farther reportedly sexually assaulted both her minor stepdaughters when they were 13 and 14 years of age and when they were studying in classes 9 and 10.
Meanwhile, when the minor victims were undergoing this horrifying ordeal, no one in the victim’s family or neighbourhood noticed these ongoing crimes for years. Apparently, the woman had earlier lodged a complaint with the Disha police station in Visakhapatnam. In her complaint, she alleged that her second husband was harassing her and the police counselled them. However, at that time, the woman hid all these crimes and did not reveal the suffering of her minor daughters.
Similar horrifying cases of abuse of stepdaughters
Earlier today, one accused named Sohel was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing his minor stepdaughter in Karnataka’s Udupi district, stated a report in India News. According to the Kundapur police, the accused is a resident of Kundapur and has been booked under the stringent POCSO Act.
Reportedly, the accused Sohel used to lock the woman and her other daughter in a room and then sexually abuse the victim.
Earlier this week, a similar case took place in Uttar Pradesh’s Chitrakoot district. Back then, a man was arrested for allegedly raping his 13-year-old daughter.
Similarly, earlier this month, three accused were arrested in Rajasthan’s Baran district. They were accused of sexual exploitation and gang-raping a 13-year-old girl.
According to the Baran Police, the minor victim was allegedly assaulted by her 68-year-old father. Later, two others allegedly gang-raped her on the pretext of rescuing the minor from her father.
Further, an autorickshaw driver was arrested in Assam’s Kamrup district for allegedly raping and murdering a 16-year-old girl, earlier this week. The body of the minor victim was found in the Digaru River at Sonapur.
