16-year-old student gang-raped in Lucknow; man arrested

Police arrested a 20-year-old man in connection with the alleged rape of a minor Dalit student in Lucknow district, an official said on Sunday.

Two others escaped from a checkpoint in Harauni where a police team was stationed, the official said, even as one of them was shot in the leg.

The arrested individual has been identified as Meraj, a resident of Harauni village, and he was picked up by another police team from the Harauni railway station, the official said.

The 16-year-old Class 11 student was allegedly raped by five men here on Saturday. A case was registered under Sections 70(2) (gang rape of a woman under the age of 18) and 351(3) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and POCSO Act at the Banthara police station, the police said.

According to an official statement, teams were formed to search for the accused.

One of the police teams came across two "suspicious" individuals riding a motorcycle at a checkpoint on the route between the power station and railway station in Harauni.

The police said when stopped, the two opened fire.

In retaliatory action by the police, they said one person was shot in the leg.

He was identified as Lalit Kashyap (33), another resident of Harauni village, and is an accused in three cases, the statement noted.

Kashyap, along with the other accused, managed to flee the spot, according to the police.

A motorcycle, pistol, and ammunition have been recovered from the accused, the police said in the statement.

Assistant Commissioner of Police, Krishnanagar, Vikash Pandey, had told PTI on Saturday that the survivor had left home around noon to visit a relative and was travelling on a motorcycle with an acquaintance.

"The girl and her acquaintance stopped in a mango orchard near a petrol pump under the Banthara police station area, when five unidentified men approached them. They beat up her acquaintance, who fled the scene. The men then raped the girl," he said.

The assailants threatened the girl against reporting the incident and left the spot, Pandey said.

The rape survivor informed a relative, who alerted the police.