A woman and her six-year-old daughter were gangraped in a moving car in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar district, the police said on Sunday, PTI reported.

The incident took place on Friday night, when the mother and the girl were heading to their home in Roorkee from Piran Kaliyar.

A man, identified as Sonu, offered to drop them. The woman knew him.

Some of Sonu’s friends were also in the car, Superintendent of Police (Rural) Pramendra Doval said. Sonu and his accomplices raped the woman and her daughter and dumped them near a canal, PTI reported. The men later fled from the scene.

The woman managed to reach a police station after the assault and lodged a complaint.

A case has been registered under Section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act at the Civil Lines police station in Roorkee against unknown persons, Doval said, according to the Hindustan Times.

The woman could not accurately tell how many men were involved in the assault, said Yogender Singh Rawat, Haridwar senior superintendent of police.

The police said that the medical examination of the woman and her daughter at the Roorkee Civil Hospital confirmed that they had been raped, reported PTI.

“Her [the minor girl] condition is now stable,” said Dr Sanjay Kansal, chief medical superintendent of the hospital, reported The Times of India.

All the accused persons are absconding, the police said.

“We are gathering CCTV footage from various important points that fall on the route of the crime and the investigation is on to nab the accused,” said Devendra Singh Chauhan, in-charge of Civil Lines police station.

Piran Kaliyar MLA Furkan Ahmad expressed shock over the incident.

“A minor is raped on a busy route of the city and the police are yet clueless about the criminals,” he said. “It is shocking how vigilant the police are.”