A month after wife dies, Man rapes 13-year-old daughter

The Ghatkopar police has arrested a 43-year-old man on charges of allegedly raping his 13-year-old daughter, a month after his wife’s death. The accused, a rickshaw driver, had earlier sexually assaulted his wife’s friend too, according to the police.

The victim, who is a student of Class 7, mustered courage to speak about her ordeal to her teacher about the incident after attending a counselling session on child abuse in her school in Ghatkopar. In a letter to the class teacher, the girl narrated her ordeal.

“The accused Shivaji Shinde lost his wife a month before to tuberculosis. On Monday, his daughter was alone at home and he asked her to grant him sexual pleasure. Afraid, the daughter went to her friend’s place for a whole day. Later she came back home at night and found her father was livid. While she was changing her clothes, Shivaji forcibly raped her,” said a Ghatkopar police official

The police said the girl told her teacher about the rape four days after the incident. The alarmed teacher then contacted an NGO in Mumbai, seeking its assistance. The NGO helped the girl file an FIR against her father at the Ghatkopar police station Friday night.

The police arrested the father and produced him before a court, which remanded him to judicial custody till January 25.