Six men have been arrested in suspicion of raping an 11-year-old girl at a karaoke club in China after the father accused the men of using their ties to the local government to escape punishment.
The men were arrested after the father posted the incident online to accuse local authorities of delaying the investigation and ask the public to help draw attention to the case, according to Sixth Tone.
The six men were identified by their surnames Liu, Jiang, Wang (a bank manager), Zou — an employee at the Qidong County human resources department — and two men who share the surname Zhou.
In a Weibo post on Nov. 16, the father of the child, whose surname is also Zhou but believed to be unrelated to the arrested men, claimed his daughter was held captive and raped by Wang, Zou, and the other men involved in the crime.
The girl, who was living with her grandparents in Qidong County, Hunan province went missing on Sept. 29. Authorities were able to locate the girl on Oct. 6 at a hotel.
Police determined she was taken to the bar owned by one of the Zhous and a woman with the surname Chen. The girl was introduced to the other suspects, Liu, Wang, Zou, and Jiang, by the two owners of the bar and a middleman, the other man with the surname, Zhou.
Seven people were initially arrested but only two of them were charged by the police, Shanghaiist reported.
However, authorities announced that all the people involved have been officially charged with either rape or facilitating prostitution, The Paper reported. Chen, on the other hand, was released on bail for being pregnant.
In a follow-up letter on Monday, the father the girl’s father claimed that the local prosecutor’s office was “acting as an umbrella for criminals,” with the authorities questioning the age of his daughter and missing clear “facts” in the case while delaying arrests of “influential criminals,” according to Sixth Tone.
He added that a hospital in Changsha diagnosed his daughter with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Feature Image via Weibo
