A 15-year old minor girl of Bhopal was abducted, sold to a prospective groom and subsequently gang-raped in a village in the Nazirabad police station area of Bhopal district.
The victim’s family had lodged a missing person’s complaint with the police on February 9. According to the complaint lodged by the victim’s father Madanlal, his family was returning home after attending a wedding at a village. At Kotra Marg falling under the Nazirabad police station, they stopped a car and sought a lift for boarding a bus for Bhopal. There were two men and a woman travelling in that car. Saying there was very little space in the vehicle they agreed to take with them the victim and her two younger sisters. They dropped the two younger sisters at Roonah, a small hamlet few km away, and abducted the elder daughter. One of the abductors, identified as Mahendra Malviya, later struck a deal on his cellphone and sold the elder daughter to one Nannulal Gujjar of Surana village for `70,000. The girl was locked up in a house and gangraped by members of the same family for the next few days before she was thrown out.
According to a police source, purchasing brides has become a tradition among those belonging to the Gujjar community in this part of the state as there is always a shortage of girls in this community. He said that the victim in this case had been sold as a bride to a Gujjar family.
When the girl revealed that she is not a Gujjar, but an Ahirwar, she was allegedly gangraped by the prospective groom and his elder brother and then asked to leave.