Nine persons, whose ages range from 12 to 36 years old were held and released as police investigate the rape of a five-year-old Canje girl on December 23 last year and a relative has expressed outrage and called for justice.
A maternal aunt of the girl, pointing out the area where her niece lost her innocence, said: “People can be so cruel, eh? Imagine the child was asleep. They removed her wrapped in her blanket and violated her.”
Indicating the child’s modest home, she opined that the perpetrator may have acted with an accomplice, who served as a look out, as the home has one stairway at the front of the building. “Maybe someone was looking out as the person take the child from the house, carried her through the trail at the back, before taking her into the bushes and raping her.” Pointing to a waterway in the area, she said, “you notice how the grass trampled here, this is where they walked with the girl.
They could not have walked on the road, for they would have been seen by neighbours whose lights would have been on. I want justice for my niece… that’s all,” she added.
An officer investigating the brutal rape of the five-year-old girl, said she believed “there is more in the story than what is being told.”
The officer said the child remains traumatized and will have to undergo an extensive period of counselling.
The officer noted that while the child’s physical condition has improved she will not be released from the hospital anytime soon.
Life-sized bear
Meanwhile, on December 31, last, members of the local and overseas chapters of the New Jersey Arya Samaj Humanitarian Mission visited the child and donated a life-sized bear, along with some clothing.
However, on seeing the male members of the non governmental organization, including Pandit Suresh Sugrim and Avinash Singh, the child dashed behind the bed and hid. She could not be persuaded to emerge until the men had left.
In a comment, Pandit Sugrim, said that as a religious leader, he was dissatisfied with the level of investment in people by his fellow clergy.
“As leaders, we should not just invest in [persons’] spiritual being but also in their physical, mental, social and psychological existence. We need to pool our various resources together along with the government, and to [lobby] for stiffer penalties for perpetrators of sexual offences, particularly committed on minors. If we put our energies together, we will make an impact.”
Sugrim said, “It is a sad state of affairs – someone having sexual intercourse with a minor. Imagine the pain she went through. This human beast needs to be put away for a long time. I do hope that the new minister [of Human Services] will pilot [in Parliament] tougher penalties.
People are going to the church, the mandir, the mosque, but they are all lost. They have no values, no respect for women and children. As religious leaders we need to do more.”
A few days after the gruesome violation of her daughter’s body, the mother of the five-year-old girl, who was snatched from her bed and taken about 100 metres away from her home where she was sexually assaulted, said her daughter had needed blood. That need had since being supplied by relatives.
Mattress
The 25-year-old mother said there was enduring pain in the child’s genitals, legs and abdomen, which seems to be overbearing for the young girl.
The housewife, who also has two other children aged six and three years old, respectively, recalled that on the night of the incident, she had taken her youngest child, a boy and her five-year-old over to her mother-in-law’s home.
At about 22:30hrs on December 23, while she was awaiting a phone call from her overseas-based reputed husband, her son started to cry. She took the children home, placed them on a mattress on the floor, and then returned next door after securing the door from the outside.
On returning to her small wooden cottage, some time later, she discovered that the second of her three children was missing.
She raised an alarm, calling out to her husband’s relatives, but no one knew where the child was. She anxiously telephoned the Reliance Police Station, but was told to wait until the next day.
“I could not have waited for the next day…I got a light and continued my search for my child. I went to the bushes around, calling her name, until I got a response,” she added. “I went into the bushes because my husband’s relatives who were with me were afraid.”
According to her, the child was found standing, still fully dressed, but covered in mud. Subsequently, blood was observed flowing onto her underwear and pants, from between her legs.
The child was rushed to the health institution where she underwent an emergency surgery, prior to being referred to the Intensive Care Unit where she is constantly monitored.
The matter was then reported to the police.
