A schoolgirl from a village outside Sri Ganganagar left home on June 18 to meet a friend in Sri Vijaynagar. She never made it back. Police say she was sold to a hotel owner by an e-rickshaw driver that same night and over the next five days, allegedly raped by more than 30 men across several hotels in the district.
The case broke into public view on Saturday, nine days after she first went missing. Ten people are now under arrest, according to RPS Kailashdan Detha, who heads the Women’s Harassment Cases Cell handling the investigation. Five of them, police say, are directly tied to the assault: hotel owner Mayank Sain, hotel manager Hardeep Nath, a man identified only as Sachin, the e-rickshaw driver Ram Babu, and Mukesh Nath. Four others, Lalband Singla, Deepak of Hanumangarh, and Tarun of Sri Ganganagar face related charges. One hotel has been sealed. Investigators are now combing through rental agreements and hotel registers to see how many more properties were involved.
What’s happening around the world: From Sexual Harassment Allegations to Anti-Feminism Remarks: Elon Musk Faces Fresh Scrutiny
The girl told police she was forced to drink alcohol whenever the pain from repeated assaults became unbearable. That detail, lifted straight from her FIR, is the kind of thing that doesn’t need embellishing.
Sri Ganganagar isn’t a tourist town. It’s a border district, recently folded into a Union Home Ministry “Special Watch Zone” alongside Barmer, Jaisalmer and Bikaner, places where BSF, police and intelligence units now operate under one command structure. And yet more than 150 unlicensed hotels reportedly run there, with little apparent oversight.
By Saturday afternoon, Congress workers were outside the Ganganagar Traders Association building, shouting down the local police. Karanpur MLA Rupinder Singh Kunnar joined them. “They should be given capital punishment“, he told reporters, referring to the accused. He didn’t stop there, he called the case proof of “a complete failure of the local police and administration”, and demanded the suspension of officers at the local police station. The party says a bigger agitation is coming if nothing changes.
What’s missing so far: any public statement from the state government. Rajasthan logged the second-highest number of child cybercrime cases in the country last year, behind only Chhattisgarh. Nationally, crimes against children are climbing up, nearly 6 percent in the latest NCRB count. Most of those cases involve someone the child already knew. This one didn’t.
For more updates follow: First Report News
