New Delhi: The residents of national capital woke up to the horrific news of a caretaker raping a one-and-half year old baby on Children's Day on Tuesday. The incident occurred in Shahpur, Jat village in South Delhi on Monday afternoon.

The accused, who was identified as Santosh, was said to be a friend of the victim's father. On Monday afternoon, the parents of the victim left for work after leaving their daughter at home and asked Santosh to take care of her. Misusing the opportunity, Santosh sexually assaulted the girl while one of his friends watched out for visitors.

When her mother reached home after a few hours, she saw her daughter crying and writhing in pain. She found blood all over the room, walls and on the floor. The girl was immediately rushed to the hospital where the doctors informed the parents that the baby was sexually assaulted. The condition of the girl was said to be stable.

The girl's mother told the police that her daughter had been behaving weirdly for the past 10 days. Now, the police suspect that the accused might have assaulted the baby on earlier occasions.

They are also probing to see if he had any accomplice. People in the locality would often leave their children in the care of the accused and it is being probed whether he had sexually assaulted any other child. Delhi Commission For Women Swati Maliwal visited the girl in the hospital. She also protested in front of Home Minister Rajnath Singh's residence. She demanded that the home minister visit the victim to understand the pain she went through.

She has also been demanding that perpetrators in cases of rapes of minors be awarded death sentence within six months to send out a strong message. Maliwal was detained along with other members of the women's panel and taken to Mandir Marg police station and later released. Earlier this month, a one-and-a-half-year-old girl was raped by a man in the presence of his two children in outer Delhi's Aman Vihar. The accused was subsequently arrested. A few days after the outer delhi rape incident, a seven- year-old girl was sexually assaulted by two juveniles when she had gone to attend nature's call to a nearby washroom in outer Delhi's Kanjhawla. (Inputs from IANS)