Delhi rape accused held in Bihar, victim stable

New Delhi/Patna, April 20 (IANS) The 25-year-old Delhi rape accused, who brutally tortured and raped a five-year-old girl, was arrested from Bihar, police said Saturday, adding a Bihar court had granted Delhi Police three-day transit remand of the accused.

Manoj Kumar was arrested from his native village in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, where he fled after locking the girl in his rented house in Gandhi Nagar area in east Delhi, police said.

A team of Delhi Police, with help from local police, arrested Kumar from Chiknauta village under Karza police station in Muzaffarpur, about 70 km from here, a Patna district police official said.

"After he was arrested, Manoj Kumar was produced in the court of the chief judicial magistrate in Muzaffarpur and the court granted a three-day transit remand to Delhi Police," the official said.

Manoj Kumar will be escorted by police first to Patna and then onward to Delhi, the official said.

Meanwhile, the five-year-old victim, from whose vaginal orifice doctors surgically removed a 200-ml bottle of hair oil and pieces of candlesticks, is under treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi.

"The girl is faring well, she is responding to treatment. She is now in a stable condition," D.K. Sharma, medical superintendent at AIIMS told IANS.

AIIMS is likely to issue a medical bulletin later in the day.

Protests continued for the second day as many massed at the AIIMS while others stood outside Delhi Police Headquarters at ITO, seeking the resignation of Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar.

The girl was abducted April 15 and kept hostage for two days without food and water in a room in which the attacker lived, on the ground floor of the building in east Delhi's Gandhi Nagar, in which the victim's family also stayed, police said.

The girl, who was repeatedly raped, was rescued when members of her family heard her screams Wednesday, police said.

--Indo-Asia News Service

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