4-year-old Sexually Assaults Classmate, Inserts Sharpened Pencil in Her Private Parts

New Delhi, November 23: In a horrific incident, a four-and-a-half-year-old boy has been booked for raping a classmate inside the classroom and the washroom of a prominent private school in west Delhi on Friday, police said.

Narrating the incident to her mother, the girl, who is of the same age, said that the boy used his finger and a sharpened pencil to assault her sexually, Hindustan Times reported. The assault caused wounds in the child’s private parts, her mother said.

After consulting legal experts in the matter, a case of rape under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act was registered, the deputy commissioner of police said. But given the suspect’s age, police were unsure of how to proceed with the prosecution. “The Indian Penal Code (IPC) provides children below seven years of age certain protections against prosecutions. We are examining those provisions even as we are handling the matter with utmost sensitivity,” said Dependra Pathak, Delhi Police’s chief spokesperson.

In her statement to the police, the girl’s mother said that her daughter complained of pain in her lower abdomen after returning from school on Friday. The child began crying that night and told her mother about the alleged assault. She told her mother that a boy from her class unbuttoned her pants in the classroom and used his finger to assault her.