A 13-year-old girl was allegedly trafficked, married off in Uttar Pradesh for monetary benefits and raped after she left home in Delhi's Bharat Nagar following a dispute with her father nearly a month ago, an official said on Monday.
Four men -- Rajeev (40), a resident of Shamli, Vikas (20) from Hapur, Ashu (55) from Meerut and Ramanjot Singh (24) from Ghaziabad -- have been arrested in connection with the incident, they said.
Police added that the girl was rescued from Shamli in Uttar Pradesh nearly a month after she went missing on July 21.
"The girl had gone missing on July 21 after she left her house in northwest Delhi's JJ Colony, Wazirpur, for tuition but did not return. A case of kidnapping was registered at the Bharat Nagar police station and a team formed to trace her," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northwest) Bhisham Singh said.
The victim told police that she had left her home in a distressed state after an argument with her father and travelled by metro from the Inderlok metro station to the New Delhi railway station, the DCP said, adding that from there, she boarded a train and reached Meerut, where she came across Vikas.
Vikas lured her and she was subsequently confined in the house of co-accused Ashu and later, handed over to Rajeev, who intended to "purchase" her, the DCP added. To facilitate the deal, a fake Aadhaar card was prepared by another accused, Ramanjot Singh, projecting her as an adult.
Police said Rajeev forcibly married the girl on July 24 and allegedly subjected her to sexual assault at his Shamli residence.
In between, the girl's family received a missed call from an unknown number.
However, when contacted, a woman said her daughter-in-law must have mistakenly called on the number and cut the call.
The location of the number was traced to Shamli and the girl was rescued from Rajeev's residence with the help of the local police on August 16.
The investigation further revealed that Ramanjot, who runs a cyber cafe in Ghaziabad, prepared the forged Aadhaar card of the victim using an online PDF editing application, police said. The forged document and four mobile phones used in the conspiracy were seized from the accused.
"During sustained interrogation, the accused disclosed that they had hatched a conspiracy to sell the girl for money. The victim's statement corroborated the sequence of events and she has been handed over to her family after counselling," the DCP said.
During the investigation, the victim's details were promptly uploaded on ZIPNET and circulated nationwide through the NCRB, SCRB, CBI and Missing Persons Squad. Public notices were published in leading newspapers and CCTV footage was thoroughly examined, which showed the victim near the Inderlok metro bus stand.
More than 30 mobile phone numbers were analysed, suspicious Instagram accounts checked and multiple raids conducted across Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, including in Mathura, Rohini, Palwal, Dwarka, Shakurpur and at various railway stations, the DCP said.
All four accused have been booked under sections 143 (kidnapping), 144 (exploitation of a trafficked person), 64 (rape), 337 (forgery), 339 (having possession of forged document), 351(2) (criminal intimidation), 61 (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), sections 6 and 21 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and sections 9 and 10 of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act.
Further investigation is underway to identify other possible links in the trafficking network, police said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
