A 14-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her stepfather for the past two years in south east Delhi's Jaitpur area, police said today.The 38-year-old accused, a painter by profession, was arrested, they added.On April 20, the police were informed that a girl was raped by her step-father for the past two years, they added.The girl was ill and her mother had brought her to a government dispensary for treatment. The dispensary informed the Delhi Child Protection Unit (DCPU) for further action, police said.A case was registered and the accused was arrested on April 22. He was allegedly sexually abusing the girl and was threatening her to not reveal about the incident to anyone.This incident comes amid nationwide outrage triggered by the gory details of the gang-rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua. Incidents of child rape have recently been reported from Raipur, Surat, Muzaffarnagar, Bareilly, Tripura, Odisha among other places. On April 21, the Union Cabinet approved the amendment in Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) Act , putting a stamp on awarding death penalty to the rapists of children below 12 years of age. It raises the minimum punishment for rape from 7 years to 10 years, extendable to life imprisonment. The minimum punishment for rape of a girl under 16 has been doubled to 20 years. For girls under 12, the executive order gives the judge the option to send the convict to jail for the rest of his life or send him to the gallows.Nearly 40,000 rape cases are reported every year in the country, but the real number is thought to be much higher, with victims wary of how their complaints will be dealt with or the social stigma attached to sex crimes.

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