Child rape: Court issues fresh production warrant

New Delhi, April 24 (IANS) A Delhi court Wednesday issued a fresh production warrant against Manoj Sah, the prime accused in a five-year-old Delhi girl's rape and torture case, to present him in court the day after.

Duty Metropolitan Magistrate Rakesh Kumar asked the Tihar Jail authorities to present Sah Thursday before the court concerned, after police said the production warrants issued earlier by the court could not be served to jail officials.

The magistrate, directing the court staff to positively dispatch the warrant to jail authority, said: "Production warrant against accused Sah be issued for tomorrow. The accused to be produced before the concerned court."

Sah could not be presented Wednesday before the court. The police Tuesday told the court that they needed to confront Sah with co-accused Pradeep Ram.

The investigating officer (IO) in the case told the court that police required the custody of Sah for linking the evidence gathered so far, after it inquired about the progress in the investigation.

Sah was arrested Saturday from his in-laws' house in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district.

Police had Tuesday told the court that both Sah and Ram had raped the minor. Both the accused have been booked under the provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012. POCSO which deals with cases of sexual offences where the victim is a child.

Sah, from whose rented room the girl was rescued two days after she went missing April 15, however, blamed Ram for the brutal attack on the child.

The court Tuesday granted four days custody of Ram,19, to police, who was arrested Monday from Bihar's Lakhisarai district where he was hiding at his maternal uncle's house and brought here on transit remand.

The police had said they needed to recover the mobile phones used by them and question him on new facts that might emerge during the probe.

Sah said he lured the girl into his room by offering her chocolate, but blamed Ram for the rape.

Ram was arrested Saturday from his in-laws' house in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district.

He was sent to judicial custody till May 4 Sunday, following his two-day interrogation by police.

The girl was abducted and kept hostage for two days without food and water in the room in which the attackers lived on the ground floor of a building in east Delhi's Gandhi Nagar. The girl's family stays in the same building, police said.

The girl was rescued when members of her family heard her screams April 17.