Morbi, May 4: According to reports, a two-year-old girl was allegedly raped and murdered in Gujarat’s Morbi district. The girl was the daughter of migrant workers. This is the second incident within a month of sexual assault on children in the state.

“The little one had gone missing late on Wednesday night from the quarter that the migrant family, working as labourers, had been allotted at one of the ceramic tiles factory here. Her body was later recovered from a nearby pond located on Jetpar road late on Thursday evening,’’ reported Hindustan Times, quoting a Morbi Police official. The police are waiting for the post-mortem report to know the exact cause of the death. An investigation has begun to find the unidentified accused.

Morbi is a town in Saurashtra peninsula which has ceramic and clock industrial units. A large number of migrant labourers work in ceramic industry.

The Union cabinet has already approved the death penalty for raping children below 12 years under Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) after the nationwide outrage over the Kathua gangrape of eight-year-old girl. The prison term for the rape of older girls and women is alos increased.

In Gujarat, the body of an 11-year-old girl was found with 86 injury marks on April 13 from Pandesara area in Surat. She was raped multiple times and killed as she was a witness to her mother’s murder. Police later found that she and her mother were bonded labourers.

In Another shocking incident, an 11-year-old girl who worked as domestic help was allegedly raped by six men for over eight months in Rajkot city. She gave birth to a baby girl in March, but the baby, born could not survive because of congenital disabilities. The police arrested six people, including the owner of the house.

The latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for the year 2016 has registered a sharp increase in cases of rape against children. According to the NCRB data for 2016, incidents of rape of children have increased by over 82% compared to 2015. According to government data, a child is sexually abused every 15 minutes in India.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 04, 2018 01:46 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).