Panchayat tells 11-year-old rape victim not to approach police

Patna, June 9:

A panchayat in Bihar has ordered an 11-year-old rape victim not to file a complaint with the police and instead asked her to wait till she is 18, as the accused has confessed his crime and will marry her, police on Friday said.

A village panchayat under the Baisi Police Station in Purnea district ordered the rape victim to not approach the police or lodge an FIR against the accused.

“After the accused confessed his crime before the panchayat meeting held on Thursday, the panchayat took a decision that the rape victim would not lodge a complaint in the local police station and asked her to wait till she is 18 as the accused will marry her,” a district police official said.

Unhappy with the panchayat’s decision, the rape victim’s family informed Purnea District Superintendent of Police Nishant Tiwari during his Janata Darbar on Thursday and sought his intervention.

Tiwary assured the rape victim’s grandmother and maternal uncle of justice and action against the accused.

According to police, the accused Mani Kumar Bosak raped the girl, a student of Class 6, when she was alone in her house.

This is not the first time that a panchayat in rural Bihar has given such a diktat to a rape victim.

Earlier, a panchayat in Muzaffarpur district had asked a 13-year-old rape victim to take the amount fixed by it and undergo abortion to resolve the issue. (IANS)