Five-Year-Old Delhi Rape Victim May Need ‘Corrective Surgery, Suspect Arrested

A five-year-old New Delhi girl who was abducted, raped for 40 consecutive hours and tortured has been described as alert and in a stable condition but may need corrective surgery, said doctors on Saturday.

The girl, who suffered serious internal injuries during her ordeal, is now being treated at the state-run All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

“She is conscious and alert,” D.K. Sharma, one of a team of doctors treating her said in a medical press release.

“Now her condition is okay and she is under close observation,” he said, adding that the child was “quite stable and her [health] parameters are within control.”

However, the doctor added that the child may need “definitive and corrective” surgery as a result of her attack, which led to two days of demonstrations in the capital and demands for improved safety for women and children.

Local Indian news reports have said the girl’s attacker allegedly tied the girl up and also burned her, adding that doctors recovered flammable debris from the child’s genital area.

A 22-year-old man was arrested on Saturday morning on suspicion of carrying out the 40-hour attack police said, after he hid at his in-law’s home in eastern India. He is originally from the Bihar region and is believed to be a neighbor of the girl’s family.

The suspect, Manoj Kumar, left New Delhi and fled to his in-law’s in a village 70 kilometers (43 miles) from local capital Patna. The garment factory worker is accused of repeatedly attacking the five-year-old inside a locked room after he kidnapped her on Monday in a lower-middle class area of New Delhi.

The alleged attack comes just four months after the gang-rape and subsequent death of 23-year-old female student.

Widely known as “Damini” in India, the student’s death triggered protests amid calls for reform in how sexually violent crimes against women and children are handled.

The alleged attack on the five-year-old also follows the alleged gang-rape and beating of a Swiss woman vacationing with her husband in India.

An added disturbing aspect of this latest incident is an accusation that the local police involved in the case offered a bribe to the five-year-old victim’s family to withdraw their complaint.

At a Saturday press conference, Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat called the attack on the five-year-old “shameful” act and demanded punitive action to be carried out against the policemen.

“Atrocities against women and children are increasing. The recent incident of rape in Delhi is very shameful for India,” said Karat. “When a five-year old child is not spared and sexually assaulted, I do not understand where the Indian society is heading.”

“It was also shameful on the part of the police to try to bribe the parents of the child, instead of filing an FIR in this case. The way the police behaved with the victim’s family was unwarranted and highly objectionable,” she added.