Thiruvananthapuram: A 16-year-old sexual abuse victim has been missing from the Nirbhaya home in Thiruvananthapuram since July 7. The Nirbhaya authorities had escorted the girl to a government girls' school in the capital city in the morning, but when they went back in the evening to take the girl back she was missing.
Since the teenager was new to the school (she was in the school for just two days), neither the teachers nor her classmates had noticed her disappearance. The police say that the girl is now in Tamil Nadu, with the very person, a 20-year-old youth, who had been charged with raping her. The police, however, have not yet sent a team to the neighbouring state to recover the girl.
"We are still in the process of finding the exact location. We cannot dispatch a team without being sure where the girl is. Earlier, we suspected they were in Puducherry. Now we have hints that the girl might be in Chennai. We are in touch with the Chennai police," a police official in charge of the investigation said.
It was three months ago that the girl was brought to the Nirbhaya home. She was pregnant. A POCSO case was filed against a 20-year-old Tamil youth who lived at Valiyasala, an area in the capital city where there is a concentration of Tamil families. The youth was arrested and sent to jail. Later he secured bail and was living with his family.
Meantime, the pregnant victim was subjected to medical termination of pregnancy, after which she was given full rest at the Nirbhaya home. It was last week that she was admitted to eleventh standard at the government school. Nirbhaya authorities say that she was a bright girl who had secured A plus for all subjects in her Class X examination.
Last week, before she was admitted to the school, she was allowed to visit her home in the city. She had lost her father and her mother lives alone at the house. The mother returned the girl to the Nirbhaya home punctually. Two days later, she was missing. It was later revealed that the girl had secretly used her mother's phone to call up some numbers in Puducherry. The Nirbhaya authorities themselves had handed over the numbers to the Puducherry police.
Simultaneously, the youth accused of raping the girl was also missing. His parents had registered a missing complaint at the Thampanoor police station. The police source said that one of the youth's friends, when interrogated, had confessed that the youth had borrowed Rs 500 from him to take the girl to Tamil Nadu. The police also suspect that the youth might have struck friendships with convicts in the Poojappura jail who in turn might have helped him to find a secure place for him and the girl in Tamil Nadu.
