17-year-old arrested for raping Instagram friend

MUMBAI: A 17-year-old boy was arrested on Monday by the Byculla police for allegedly raping a girl of the same age with whom he was connected on Instagram for months. The police said the two started chatting on the platform and became friends and later, they started meeting one another.
“During one such outing in June this year, the boy asked to meet her in an empty apartment where he sexually assaulted her,” said an officer.
The Byculla police have registered an FIR and detained the 17-year-old boy. He was produced before a Juvenile Justice Board. The police said the boy and the girl both are students of first-year junior college and both study in separate colleges in south Mumbai.
The boy’s father works as a real estate consultant in the Byculla area. According to the police, the girl opposed his sexual advances after which he used verbal abuse and later assaulted her physically and sexually.
“The girl was afraid to report the incident to the police, but recently she told her family members about the incident. They filed a complaint and after verifying the incident, we booked the teen,” said an official.
The police have applied sections 376 (punishment for rape), 354 (assault of criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 511 (punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the Indian Penal Code and section 8 (punishment for sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The police officer said the offence was committed before July 1 and therefore they have applied sections of the Indian Penal Code.