A 12-year-old boy was arrested for sexually abusing a mentally unsound child in Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu on Saturday.
Police said Panchavarnam working in a match factory at Poolavoorani used to take her six-year-old daughter along with her to work, as she is mentally unsound. While she was engaged at work on Friday afternoon, the child went missing.
When the mother and her co-workers searched for the child, they found a boy abusing her inside a dilapidated building opposite the factory. They rescued the child from the boy and admitted her in the Sivakasi government hospital.
Panchavarnam lodged a complaint with the police following which police picked up the boy. Enquiries with him revealed that he was studying class 7 at a government high school in the region.
Sivakasi all-women police station inspector Yasodhai said that the boy during investigations had revealed that he had bad habits. That day he happened to see the child sitting alone when he passed that side.
He had not gone to school on the day in view of his brother’s betrothal ceremony. Both his parents too are daily wagers.
Police registered a rape case against the boy and also booked him under SC\ST Prevention of Atrocities Act as the girl child happens to be a dalit. He was subjected to a medical test.
On a complaint from Panchavarnam, police arrested and produced him before the juvenile justice court in Madurai which sent him to the juvenile home.