Agencies/New Delhi
Police said yesterday they have arrested two teenagers over the rape of a toddler, the latest sexual assault on a child in the capital to ignite public anger.
Twenty police teams questioned more than 250 suspects before arresting the juveniles over the attack on the two-year-old girl, who was found bleeding in a park near her New Delhi home on Friday night.
“Delhi police have solved (the crime) by apprehending two juveniles in the rape case of a child,” Joint Commissioner of Police Dependra Pathak, told reporters.
“Further investigation is on. All concerned evidences are being collected,” Pathak said, adding that the two 17-year-olds arrested late on Saturday will face initial charges in 10 days.
Both boys lived in the same poor western neighbourhood as the toddler and one of them was known to her family, Pathak said.
The assault on the toddler, who is recovering in hospital, was the second within 24 hours after a five-year-old girl was gang-raped at a neighbour’s house in east Delhi.
Three men have been arrested over that attack which also occurred on Friday evening, with both incidents sparking protests and renewed anger over sexual violence in the capital.
The attacks on the girls came a week after a four-year-old girl was raped, slashed with a knife and dumped by a railway track in Delhi.
After neighbourhood protests on Saturday, small rallies were staged yesterday at police headquarters and the office of Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who has been blamed for failing to halt the attacks.
Kejriwal has pointed the finger at the central government, as both jostle for control of the capital’s police department.
Kejriwal demanded control over the police and said he won’t let Prime Minister Narendra Modi “sleep peacefully” over the rising crime in the capital.
“I am no Sheila Dikshit. I won’t let even PM sleep peacefully,” Kejriwal told reporters after meeting Lt Governor Najeeb Jung.
“Why didn’t he (Modi) visit the families of rape victims when he can go abroad?” the Aam Aadmi Party leader asked.
Dikshit, who ruled Delhi for 15 years before being defeated by Kejriwal, faced public wrath over the horrific gang-rape and death of a 23-year-old woman in 2012.
She had then pleaded helplessness citing that Delhi police were not under her control - an issue which continues to be a sore point between Delhi’s AAP government and the central government.
Kejriwal said Delhi police, which report to the central home ministry and the Lt Governor, had become ineffective because of which there was no fear among criminals.
Students shout slogans during a protest against the rapes of two minor girls outside the police headquarters in New Delhi yesterday.
