Bhayandar : The Mira Road police have arrested a 25-year-old man on charges of kidnapping and raping a 15-year-old girl who was finally rescued from Lucknow recently.
The accused Ravi Chaurasiya, 25, a painter, was a cousin of the tenth grader living in Mira Road.
Police started the investigation after a missing person complaint was registered by her parents when she did not return home from school on July 30.
On August 3, the girl called up her parents and told them that she had been abducted and held captive in a house in Lucknow. They informed the police who sent a team to Lucknow. With the help of UP police, they nabbed Chaurasiya and rescued the girl.
According to police, the accused took the girl first to Nashik and then to Lucknow where she was raped by him on a number of occasions. Chaurasiya, who is a resident of Andheri, was booked under section 376 (Rape) of the IPC and under the relevant sections of the stringent Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. The accused, however, rejected the rape charges. He said the girl was in love with him and that they eloped to Lucknow.
“Since the girl is a minor, his love theory stands baseless. An official complaint has been registered by the girl’s parents,” said a police officer who did not wish to be named. Chaurasiya had been remanded in police custody till August 12 by the district sessions court.
Suresh Golani
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