UP: Trader held for molesting minor girl in lift

Lucknow, April 27 The police have arrested a trader for allegedly molesting a 12-year-old girl in an elevator of a plush apartment block in Lucknow's Gomti Nagar Extension.

According to police, the girl is the daughter of a businessman and the action was taken on the basis of an FIR lodged by her family.

The accused, Ajay Kumar Gupta, 45, a trader, had come from Ballia on Monday to attend a house-warming party in the same apartment building.

According to Gomti Nagar Extension Station House Officer, Dileep Kumar Singh, "The minor girl was alone in the lift, when the accused entered and allegedly started sexually harassing her. However, he fled when the girl began screaming. She then went home but was crying continuously. She later narrated the incident to her mother. Thereafter, her parents came to the police and lodged an FIR."

The police scanned the CCTV camera footage of the building and of the lift in which the accused was seen with the minor.

Gupta has been arrested under charges of use of criminal force on woman with intent to outrage her modesty, criminal intimidation and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.