A ten-year-old girl who was forced to give birth to a child conceived through rape is believed to have been sexually abused by several men, after a DNA test failed to confirm the father of the baby.
The young girl, from Chandigarh, Punjab, was denied an abortion by a court in July, as her family only discovered that she was pregnant when she was in her third trimester.
It was originally believed the girl had fallen pregnant by her uncle, who is now in custody and charged with child rape, but the forensic test found that he is not the father.
The girl was denied abortionas her family only discovered that she was pregnant when she was in her third trimester. Pictured is a protest against rape and sexual violence in India
The uncle, who is in his 40s, has also admitted to sexually abusing his niece, police say, so neither officials or the girl’s family had been looking for other suspects.
‘So far no-one had thought of any other possibility,’ an official involved with the investigation told the BBC.
‘The girl had testified to the court on video conferencing and in her statement she had very clearly named the uncle and revealed facts about her abuse.’
Police have now reopened the case after the DNA test and are investigating whether the girl may have been raped by others.
Her baby was delivered by C-section at a hospital in Chandigarh in August and the infant is now in the care of authorities ahead of an adoption.
The girl’s uncle has admitted to raping his niece in the northern city of Chandigarh, Punjab
The chairman of the team that treated the girl, Dr Dasari Harish, said: ‘As far as the girl is concerned, she is stable and will be kept in a separate room.’
He added that the ‘high risk pregnancy’ ultimately concluded in an ‘uneventful’ birth.
‘We hope the baby also recovers,’ he said.
The girl was not aware that she was going to hospital to deliver a baby but was instead told by her parents that she needed an operation to remove a stone from her stomach.
Her father has asked that the child be made available for adoption.
Chief Justice of India Justice J. S. Khehar
Indian law does not allow women to undergo the procedure beyond 20 weeks unless the foetus is proven to be genetically unviable or if it poses a risk to the mother’s life.
The girl’s parents discovered their child was pregnant after she complained to them about stomach pains.
She later told her mother that her maternal uncle had raped her six times over a period of several months when he visited the family in their home.
On July 18, the family sought legal permission to have the pregnancy terminated and the uncle was arrested, but their initial appeal to Chandigarh court was refused.
They then went to the supreme court in Delhi but – when the girl was 32-weeks pregnant – that appeal was also refused.
The Chief Justice J S Khehar-headed bench denied the plea of the girl by citing a ‘grave threat’ to her life.
‘The medical board is satisfied that it will neither be in the interest of the child or the live foetus which is approximately 32 weeks old to order abortion,’ said the bench.
The team of doctors that delivered the birth today consisted of three gynaecologists, an anaesthetist, a neonatologist and a paediatrician.