While the country is still reeling from the death of a 19-year-old Dalit girl who was gang-raped and brutally tortured in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras, another horrifying incident has been reported from Assam.

Police officials in state’s Lakhimpur district arrested a tempo driver who was accused of raping two minor girls on Thursday, October 1.

The two girls, aged 12 and 15, hailing from Arunachal Pradesh were working as domestic workers in Naharlagun town and had escaped from their employer’s home and reached Banderdewa in Lakhimpur on the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border where they met the tempo driver.

‘The accused kept taking them around the whole day. In the evening, he allegedly raped the elder girl who later managed to escape. The accused was caught by local villagers, while he was raping the other girl,’ said Longnit Terong, superintendent of police, Lakhimpur, reported Hindustan Times.

The driver was then handed over to the police who arrested him on charges of rape under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Medical examinations of the victims have been conducted and they have been sent to a childcare home, according to the officials, while efforts are being made to trace their families in Arunachal Pradesh.

According to the latest data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), India recorded 88 rape cases every day in 2019. Out of the total 32,033 reported rape cases in the year, 11 per cent were from the Dalit community, as per NCRB’s annual report titled ‘Crimes in India -2019’.

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