In a tragic incident, a 17-year-old girl was kept in a confinement for three days by a 22-year-old man, who repeatedly sexually assaulted her following she refused to marry him, according to the police on Saturday. The accused has been arrested and sent to the jail in Lakhimpur Kheri.

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As per police reports, the survivor endured abuse, beatings, and had the letters of the accused’s name, ‘Aman’, seared onto her face with a hot iron rod.

Allegedly, law enforcement initially lodged a case under lesser charges such as wrongful confinement and causing hurt, according to her family’s allegations. However, subsequent to the survivor’s statement being recorded before a magistrate under Sec 164 CrPC, sections related to rape, along with the Pocso Act, were appended to the FIR.

Disputing the family’s claims, SSP (Kheri) Ganesh Saha clarified that the initial FIR stemmed from their complaint, and the survivor’s video statement did not align with such serious accusations. He expressed uncertainty regarding the reason for her altered testimony but assured that the investigation would proceed based on her allegations, leading to the arrest of the accused.

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SHO (Dhaurahra) Dinesh Singh revealed that the perpetrator, a school dropout employed at a salon in Hyderabad, had proposed marriage to the girl. When she declined, he inscribed his name on both her cheeks. The FIR was registered upon her visit to the police station with her family, notwithstanding her lack of identification, which initially cast doubt on her age. Subsequently, IPC sections 324 (voluntarily causing hurt using a dangerous weapon) and 376 (rape), alongside the Pocso Act, were added to the charges.