In a shocking incident spanning Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, a 12-year-old girl was rescued by the Varanasi police after being trafficked by her biological mother, repeatedly raped by her buyer, and subsequently assaulted by an auto-rickshaw driver. The case came to light on May 21, when Sarnath locals spotted the child crying on the street and alerted the police.
Following a detailed statement from the victim before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), a joint police operation successfully tracked down and arrested all three accused—the victim’s mother, the buyer Lahru Yadav, and the auto driver Ravi Verma. Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Sarnath, Vidush Saxena, confirmed the arrests, stating that the minor had been subjected to continuous exploitation since January before being abandoned and preyed upon a second time.
A Cycle of Exploitation and Financial Deceit
The investigation revealed a chilling sequence of events that highlights the brutal commodification of the young girl. In January, the minor’s mother allegedly traded her daughter to 40-year-old Lahru Yadav, a widower from Chandauli, in exchange for a cash payment of ₹16,000 and 10 saris. To mask the extreme age gap and lend social legitimacy to the transaction, Yadav reportedly spent approximately ₹90,000 on a cosmetic hair transplant in Delhi before staging a sham marriage ceremony at a temple in the Chahania area.
According to police reports, Yadav then confined the girl to his home, repeatedly raping her and forcing her to work as domestic help. Sarnath Inspector Pankaj Kumar Tripathi noted that the accused were apprehended from separate locations following a named FIR registered under the strict provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Betrayal, Abandonment, and Secondary Victimisation
The victim’s ordeal intensified after neighbors in Chandauli warned Yadav that keeping a minor as a wife carried severe statutory consequences. Fearing legal prosecution, Yadav drove the child to the neighboring district of Varanasi on May 19 and abandoned her near the Banaras railway station in Manduadih.
Lost and visibly distressed, the girl was approached by Ravi Verma, an auto driver from Jharkhand, who gained her trust under the false guise of helping her reunite with her family. Instead, Verma drove the child to a secluded area near a pond in Sarnath, where he assaulted her before abandoning her on the street two days later. The minor is currently receiving medical assessment and psychological counseling while under the protective custody of state child welfare officials.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
This deeply disturbing case exposes a severe failure of societal empathy and highlights how easily the most vulnerable among us can fall through the safety nets of family and community protection. It is a profound tragedy when a child’s safety is commodified for mere monetary gain, only for her to face a continuous chain of opportunism and violent exploitation.
True social progress requires us to look beyond immediate policing; we must cultivate a collective consciousness rooted in deep kindness, absolute protection of children, and active communal responsibility. We must ask ourselves how such cruelty can remain unseen in our neighbourhoods for months.
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