By IANS
Raipur : Three people have been arrested for stripping five minor tribal girls and sexually abusing them at a state-run hostel-cum-school in Chhattisgarh’s Jashpur district, police said Tuesday.
The incident took place Sunday night when a clerk, guard and the hostel superintendent’s brother stormed into the school’s hostel at Buldega under Kotba police station in Jashpur, some 480 km from here.
“On Sunday night the lady hostel superintendent, Mandra Narang, deputed her brother Pannalal Saxena in her absence. He, along with a guard Purshotam Chauhan and clerk Butturam, took five girls, aged 8-10 years into a room, stripped them and sexually abused them,” Akbar Ram Korram, district superintendent of police, told IANS.
The matter came to light Monday when the girls told their parents about the incident. Parents and other villagers caught Saxena and beat him up. Police then arrested the three accused.
The hostel superintendent is absconding and block officials have sent a report to higher authorities, seeking action against Narang.
The hostel houses around 30 tribal girls who study in the school from Class 1 to Class 5 – all below 10 years of age.
Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi strongly condemned the incident Tuesday, noting that cases of sexual assault against tribal women at government hostels were on the rise across the state.
He blamed the anti-tribal approach of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for the surge in crimes against tribal girls.