NEW DELHI, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- A 10-year-old rape victim Thursday delivered a baby at a government hospital in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh, nearly three weeks after the country's Supreme Court rejected her abortion plea.
"The minor girl delivered a baby through C-section this morning. A team of doctors was involved in delivering the child. The infant's weight is 2.2 kg and has been admitted to neo-natal intensive care unit," Dr. Dasari Harish, the head of the medical team, told the media.
"As far as the girl is concerned, she is stable and will be kept in a separate room," the doctor added.
The girl was impregnated by her uncle who had forced on her for several months, but her pregnancy was discovered only last month when she was taken to a hospital by her parents after she complained of stomach ache.
The Supreme Court had on July 28 rejected the girl's plea to abort her foetus. She had made the plea through her lawyer after a local court in Chandigarh had turned down the same.
A two-judge bench, led by Chief Justice J.S. Khehar, took the decision based on the assessment of doctors who said a medical termination was not safe for the girl who was then 32 weeks pregnant as well as for the foetus.
Indian law does not permit medical terminations after 20 weeks unless there is a threat to the mother's life.
Rapes of women, including minors, are on the rise in India, despite the government toughening laws against sexual assaults following 2012 fatal and brutal gangrape of a medical student by six men on a moving bus in Delhi.
Four of the six men have been sentenced to death by the Supreme Court, while the main accused committed suicide during the trial and the sixth accused, being a minor at the time of the incident, was let off after spending three months at a remand facility.
