16-year-old girl held captive for 5 hours, gang-raped in Chhattisgarh; recorded act, blackmailed to make video public

RAIPUR: In a grisly incident raising fears over women's safety, a 16-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by three youths in Chhattisgarh's Balod district. Though the incident took place on Sunday, the matter came to light on Tuesday.

Among the accused is the survivor's minor friend, the police said.Acting on the complaint lodged by the survivor and her mother, the police arrested two of the accused under Pocso Act, while the juvenile was detained.Sharing details of the incident, the sleuths said the juvenile friend, who her on a pillion ride on his bike, to a dam on the pretext of an outing, while the other two turns to rape her and even made a video of the act in a bid to blackmail her.

In her statement to the police, the girl, a Class 10 student, said the two arrested accused threatened her and kept her in captivity for more than five hours. Anxious as hours rolled and their daughter didn't return home, her parents approached police, who started scanning nearby CCTV footage for leads.The survivor told police that she returned home somehow after the two main accused chased away her male friend, adding that she narrated her ordeal to her mother and later lodged a complaint with the police.

Meanwhile, the juvenile friend admitted to taking the survivor out on his two-wheeler, but claimed that he didn't know the other two accused.He claimed that the other two youths appeared at the spot all of a sudden from a nearby village, the police said, adding that it is a common practice with some village boys to catch young couples at remote locations, who, thereafter, record and blackmail them by threatening to make the video public.They also rape and loot unsuspecting girls under the threat of making their videos public, the police added.(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)