'Missing 13-year-old was sold for Rs 7 lakh by father, found pregnant'

The police have arrested the girl's father along with the middleman and the person who bought her, who are now lodged in jail

Barmer (Rajasthan): The police found a 13-year-old girl hailing from Rajasthan’s Barmer district in Hyderabad on Monday, five months after her father sold her for Rs 7 lakh and she was since then reported missing.

According to the police, the girl was found to be four months pregnant, a report in Hindustan Times said. 

The police have arrested the girl’s father along with the middleman, identified as Gopa Ram Mali and the person who bought her, identified as Sanwla Ram Daspa, and are now lodged in jail. They also arrested two other people on charges of kidnapping. They said the girl has been brought to Barmer and handed over to her mother. The district police superintendent said that she will be produced to court on November 15.

The girl’s paternal uncle had registered a kidnapping and extortion case on June 30 after she went missing. The police filed an FIR in which he said that Mali, told him on June 22 that the girl’s wedding has been fixed in a reputed family. He alleged that the girl’s father took her to meet her suitor’s family, but returned without her. When he asked him about the girl, the man said that he dropped her to her maternal uncle’s house.  

When he girl’s family found on June 26 that she was not at her maternal uncle’s house, the father said that she has been kidnapped by some people after the FIR was registered and he was arrested along with Mali and Daspa.

Daspa’s son was charged with kidnapping under section 363, kidnapping, abducting or forcing a woman to compel for marriage under section 366 and extortion under section 384 of Indian Penal Code. Meanwhile, the uncle filed a habeas corpus case petition in Rajasthan High Court when the police were unable to trace the girl, of which the next hearing date is November 15.

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