Karnataka: Man Rapes Teen Girl, Detained for Attempted Blackmail

MANDYA: Police in Mandya district of Karnataka has filed charges against a man under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the anti-conversion statute for allegedly using compromising photos to coerce a 13-year-old girl into marrying him and converting to Islam.

The Hindu girl lives in the same neighborhood as the suspect, who has been named Yunus Pasha alias Fayaz Mohammed.

The girl received a smartphone from the accused, who then started making video calls to her, the police claim. They continued by saying that the gift of the phone was unknown to the girl's family.

According to the authorities, the accused once took some explicit video calls with the girl and used these to coerce her into having sexual relations.

He started threatening to reveal their private talks and explicit images to her family when she refused, and they continued.

The girl's family left her at home with her grandma on November 8 as they spent four days at Shirdi. On November 10, the accused allegedly took advantage of the situation and force-fed the girl's grandma sleeping drugs by mixing them with her meals. The accused allegedly sexually assaulted the girl after she passed out.

They noticed changes in the girl's conduct after they got back from Shirdi on November 12 according to the complaint the girl's father filed on November 19.

After reportedly raping the girl, Yunus made a marriage proposal to her with the stipulation that she convert to Islam. Yunus is already married and has a child, according to the police.

On November 18, the girl told her family about the incident after becoming upset about this circumstance. Yunus was detained after her father accused him of rape and blackmail the following day.

"In his complaint, the girl's father claimed that a neighbour who lived across the street from their home first blackmailed his daughter, a Class 8 student when she was 13 years old. In order to get her to convert so he could marry her, he assaulted her on a day when she was home alone. In response to the allegation, we detained the suspects, filed a case under the POCSO Act, and are currently looking into every element of the complaint, Mandya's Superintendent of Police N Yatheesh told reporters.

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