Apr 30, 2012: Rape bid on 8-year-old in Ahmedabad, one arrested

TNN | Apr 30, 2012, 01.10AM IST

AHMEDABAD: An eight-year-old girl was saved in the nick of time on Saturday. She was in the clutches of a man who wanted to rape her. The girl could be rescued owing to some alert citizens of Juhapura.

The girl was abducted by a 24-year-old youth, Ghulam Mustafa Shaikh. According to Vejalpur police officials, Shaheen (name changed), a resident of Apnanagar in Juhapura had been to a nearby madrasa with her elder brother on Saturday morning. When she came out of the school during a break at 10.30 am, she was approached by Ghulam who pretended to know the girl's family and sought her help to pass on a book to the maulana of the madrasa. He then insisted that she accompanied him.

"Ghulam then took her to his residence nearby and locked the door. He tried to rape her but soon got afraid that he will be caught. He then tied her hands and legs and gagged her with a dupatta and then forced her in a crate used to carry milk. Ghulam later hired an autorickshaw to go to Sanklitnagar. He had planned to take the girl to terrace of a four-storey building and rape her," said J B Rana, inspector of Vejalpur police station.

However, when he reached the second floor, the residents saw the girl tied up in his lap and got suspicious. They started questioning about her identity when Shaikh took her back and hired an auto and reached near Apnanagar. He freed her and told her to go home but not to talk to anyone about what happened.

"Her parents were worried due to her disappearance and had also started search in the area near the madrasa. When she came back, she started crying and narrated the entire incident when the parents got alerted and informed police. We followed the girl and reached Shaikh's house and arrested him. In his questioning, we got to know that he had come from outside the state and was living with relatives in the area. As his relatives had been to a marriage in Mumbai, he found an opportunity and tried to rape the girl," said Rana. He said that Shaikh is being questioned to know whether he had tried to rape any girl earlier.
Link: Rape bid on 8-year-old in Ahmedabad, one arrested