A six-year-old girl was allegedly abducted from the Pune railway station area and sexually assaulted by a rickshaw driver on early Thursday morning, police said.
Sagar Mandhare (39), the accused, was arrested within a few hours of the crime, they added.
"The girl was sleeping with her parents on a footpath when the accused took her away in his rickshaw around 1 am," said an official of the Bundgarden police station.
After her parents realized that she was missing, they filed a complaint, he said.
Following some inputs about the rickshaw in which the girl had been last seen, the police tracked down Mandhare and rescued her.
A preliminary probe revealed that he had taken her to the Satara road area and sexually assaulted her, said the official.
"The accused has been arrested under relevant sections of the IPC and Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act and further investigation is on," he said.
Earlier this week, several persons were arrested for allegedly abducting and raping a 14-year-old girl who had arrived at the Pune railway station to board a train after leaving home.
Asked about the two incidents, Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil told reporters here that police had arrested the accused in both cases. It is our collective responsibility to stop such crimes, the minister added.
