A second uncle has been arrested for raping a ten-year-old Indian girl who was forced to give birth after judges stopped her having an abortion, it has emerged.
The young girl, from Chandigarh, Punjab, was denied an abortion by a court in July, because 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 an uncle in his 40s, who is now in custody and charged with child rape – but the forensic test found that he is not the father.
The second uncle, a 38-year-old, has since been arrested and police now want to carry out tests on his DNA.
A second uncle has been arrested for raping a ten-year-old Indian girl who was forced to give birth after judges stopped her having an abortion, it has emerged. Pictured is a protest against rape and sexual violence in India
His arrest on Tuesday night came after the girl told police and counsellors his name.
Neelambari Vijay, a senior police official in Chandigarh city, told the BBC: ‘The girl stated that her 38-year-old uncle had also abused her.’
Police believed they had arrested the right man – an uncle in his 40s – and had therefore not been looking for further suspects. He has not been cleared and remains on trial.
‘So far no-one had thought of any other possibility,’ an official involved with the investigation told the BBC last week.
‘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.’
But police reopened the case after a DNA test and launched a further investigation to see 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 young girl, from Chandigarh, Punjab, was denied an abortion by a court in July, because her family only discovered that she was pregnant when she was in her third trimester
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 J. S. Khehar denied the plea of the girl by citing a ‘grave threat’ to her life
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.