A newspaper clip is being widely shared on social media with a headline claiming that a five-year-old girl was raped during Kanya Pujan.
The newspaper title reads, “कन्या पूजन के बहाने 5 साल की बच्ची को सुनसान जगह ले गया, रेप किया, फिर पत्थर पर सिर पटक कर मार डाला.” (English translation, “A 5-year-old girl who was taken to an isolated place on the pretext of being worshipped, was raped and hit on the head and killed her.”)
The link to the post can be seen here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile did a fact-check and found the claim to be Misleading.
On searching with appropriate keywords, we found a report published by News18 Hindi on May 14, 2019. According to the report, a 5-year-old girl was raped in Panchkula Sector 14. The girl was taken to an isolated place on the pretext of Kanya Pujan and was raped. Later, the rapist brutally murdered her by hitting her with stone.
The incident was also reported by The Times of India on January 25, 2022. The report said, “In the first of its kind judgment in the region, a 17-year-old juvenile was on Friday sentenced to life imprisonment for a five-year-old girl’s rape and murder in Panchkula in May last year. The convict was awarded life term and slapped penalty of Rs 50,000 under Sections 302 (murder) and 376 A (causing death of rape victim) of Indian Penal Code and Section 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 by the judge.”
We also found that the same newspaper clip was shared by a Facebook user on July 7, 2019.
Dainik Bhaskar had also reported about the incident three years ago.
Hence, we can ascertain that the news report is old and the viral claim is misleading.
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