Police have arrested a man accused of raping and severely injuring a five year-old girl from Delhi who is currently undergoing treatment.
Manoj, 22, was arrested late Friday night from the eastern state of Bihar where he had fled after leaving the girl for dead in an apartment in the same Delhi building the family lives in. He was later taken to Delhi for interrogation.
Doctors say the girl suffered severe injuries and bruising all over her body including her neck and genitalia. Protests that began on Friday grew more intense after video footage showed a policeman slapping a woman protester, and following reports investigators offered the victim's family 2,000 rupees not to file a case.
The assault on the girl revived memories of the gang rape by five adult men and a teenaged boy of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a bus on December 16 in New Delhi, a case which caused an outpouring of anger in Delhi.
On Saturday, a group of men and women kicked and pushed yellow metal barricades at the gates of the police station in an attempt to break through.
The girl, whose injuries are infected and so severe she may need corrective surgery, had been kept in captivity for 40 hours, police said. The accused was a temporary worker in garment factories and lived with his father, a juice seller, police said. He was hiding at his in-laws' house when he was captured.
In a televised news conference, a deputy commissioner said police will seek to establish if more people were involved in the alleged rape after the accused is questioned. The girl, whose parents work as laborers and live in a slum in the outskirts of Delhi, went missing from home on April 15, according to Manish Sisodia, an official of the Aam Aadmi Party which organized a protest on Friday.
Local media said she was found by neighbors who heard her crying two days later.
