Moradabad, May 30 (IANS): A 15-year-old Dalit girl was allegedly raped by a youth in a village in Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad district.

The police said the girl, a student of class 8, had gone out of her house early in the morning when the accused dragged her into his shop and raped her.

In his complaint, the girl's elder brother said that when the family noticed that she had been missing, they started searching for her and heard her screaming from a shop locked from inside.

When they knocked at the door repeatedly, the accused fled the spot and they found the girl lying semi-conscious inside the shop.

The girl told her family that she had been raped.

An FIR was registered under section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and appropriate sections of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

The girl was sent for medical examination and police recorded her statement.

The accused is absconding and multiple teams have been deployed to arrest him.

Circle Officer, Desh Deepak Singh, who is probing the case, said: "The girl is a minor, who studies in a school, while the accused is around 25-year-old and runs a furniture shop. I have inspected the spot in the presence of the girl's family. We have gathered evidence from the village and multiple teams have been deployed to arrest the accused."

The incident, meanwhile, took on a communal colour since the accused belongs to another community.

Additional forces have been deployed in the area to a prevent fallout of the incident.