61-year-old arrested for raping granddaughter's minor friend

BHUBANESWAR: Kharavel Nagar police on Wednesday arrested a 61-year-old man on charges of raping his granddaughter's friend - an 11-year-old - on Monday evening. The accused was identified as Ajay Barik. Barik lives in a slum in the Kharavel Nagar area. Police said the minor survivor is a resident of the the same slum.
The survivor, said police, had come to Barik's house to play with the accused's granddaughter, at around 5 pm on Monday.Barik was alone at the house and the two girls were playing in the backyard. In her complaint, the rape survivors mother alleged that Barik had sent his granddaughter out to buy biscuits from a nearby store.

"He deliberately asked my daughter to wait in the house until her friend returned with the biscuits. Minutes after his granddaughter left the house, he raped my daughter by gagging her mouth. He even threatened her of dire consequences if she disclosed the information to anyone," the survivor's mother said.
The mother said that her daughter returned home crying in the evening and narrated her ordeal in full. "We went to Barik's house. He initially insisted that he was innocent. Then he began apologising. The next day we lodged a complaint against him," she said.
Police said they received the complaint from the survivor's mother on Tuesday. She was medically examined. "We are waiting for a medical report. A rape case was registered against the man. We have arrested him," deputy commissioner of police, Anup Sahoo, said.
Last year, at least 82 minor girls were raped in Bhubaneswar. The number was 77 in 2016. Police said, in most of the cases, the rape survivors and accused had been acquaintances.