Khunti gangrape case: School head booked for not informing police

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The head of the Kochange village school, from where five women working with an NGO were allegedly abducted and later gang-raped, has been booked for not reporting the incident to police, an official said on Saturday.

The police have also released a sketch of one of the five accused and announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for providing information about them, Khunti Superintendent of Police Aswini Kumar Sinha said.

While an FIR was filed on Thursday against unidentified persons involved in the gangrape in Khunti district, another case was registered against Father Alfonso Alien at the Arki police station yesterday, he said.

Father Alfonso Alien, who runs the missionary school from where the women were abducted, was detained on Thursday for questioning and later released on a personal bond, he said.

The SP also said the statements of the victims and their colleagues were recorded under section 164 of the CrPC.

Five women working with an NGO were allegedly raped at gunpoint by a group of at least five men when they had gone to the village under Arki police station to create awareness on migration and human trafficking on Tuesday.

Initial investigation has found that the people behind 'Pathalgarhi' (a practice in which villagers inscribe various tenets on huge stone slabs and ban outsiders in their area), were behind the incident, Deputy Inspector General of Police Amol V Homker had said yesterday.

The police officer had said neither the victims nor anybody else had informed the administration about the incident. The police got the information from its "sources".

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