Hyderabad: The courage of a 12-year-old to Dial 112, helped Hyderabad police put an end to her five-year ordeal of alleged sexual abuse by her father. Police said the minor had been repeatedly sexually assaulted since she was seven.Based on her complaint, Chandrayangutta police booked the 45-year-old accused under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and took him into custody for questioning. They are considering shifting the survivor to the care of an NGO.According to police, the call centre received the SOS call around 11.30 am on Aug 20 and immediately alerted Chandrayangutta police, given the gravity of the complaint. When police reached her home, they found the minor alone. Ironically, she had used the same mobile phone that her alleged tormentor had given her to keep track of her movements to call police for help.“She was initially in a state of extreme trauma. It took time to make her feel comfortable enough to narrate her ordeal to us. We subsequently shifted her to a safe place as per laid-down procedures,” said a source privy to the case. Women police personnel who examined her found multiple injuries on her body.In her complaint, the survivor told police that the accused allegedly first sexually assaulted her during the Covid-19 pandemic and continued to abuse her intermittently, with the latest assault reported on Aug 14. “The minor said she had told her mother about the abuse, but when her mother confronted her husband, he threatened to kill her. Hence, his alleged crime never came to light,” a police official said.The survivor also told police that the accused denied her an education and forced her to drop out of school when she was in class 1. “A while ago, the accused bought the survivor a mobile phone to ensure that she mostly remained indoors. She used the same phone to call police for help when nobody was at home,” the official said.Police found that the accused allegedly committed the offence inside their house. They have refused to give custody of the minor to her family members and are examining whether to keep her in a home run by an NGO.“The accused has been taken into custody. During interrogation, he claimed that his daughter was mentally unstable and was, therefore, making false accusations,” the cop added.
