us embassy
© REUTERS / Adnan Abidi
A 25-year-old man has been accused of raping a five-year-old girl at the US Embassy compound in India. Both the suspect and the victim are Indian nationals, who live at the mission's local staff premises.

The horrific sexual assault allegedly happened on Saturday, but the Indian police only made the case public on Wednesday.

According to the police, the victim's father is employed as a housekeeper at the embassy quarters and lives there. The accused rapist has a residency at the compound too because his father also works for the embassy. Indian media are giving conflicting reports on whether the man himself, a driver by profession, is an embassy employee or not.

Police say the accused abused his acquaintance with the girl. On Sunday the child was playing outside the family house when the suspect invited her to the home of his parents to play mobile phone games. There he took advantage of the victim, police said. A medical examination confirmed that the victim had been raped.

The authorities were alerted to the alleged crime on Sunday by the girl's family. The child complained of pains in her private parts, and her mother soon got the details of the ordeal out of her. The next day she took her abused daughter to a private clinic and called the police.

The alleged tormentor was surprised when the police came to arrest him on Sunday, Eish Singhal, deputy commissioner of police, said.

"The suspect didn't even expect that the girl would inform her parents or that anyone would approach the police," he said as cited by the Hindustan Times.

The embassy said its employees were "deeply disturbed by the alleged misconduct."

"We promptly took action when we were informed of the allegation, and brought this matter to the attention of the police. Of course, we are cooperating fully with them," the statement said.

Two years ago India introduced harsher punishment for child rapists, with convicted criminals now facing the death penalty. Despite that, sexual violence is still a painful reality in the country, where victims of such crimes may be stigmatized and are thus often reluctant to report. Several high profile violent rape cases triggered mass protests in India over the past several years.