According to officials, the girl, a resident of Greater Noida, was returning home after school at around 2.30pm when she was offered a lift by the three, one of them her classmate.

“One of them was a distant relative of the victim, while another was her classmate in school. The third accused was unknown to her, and has not been identified yet,” said Ram Bhawan Singh, station house officer (SHO), Greater Noida police station.

He added when the girl failed to return home by the evening, her parents registered a complaint with the police.

“The girl’s parents approached the police around 9pm. They said their daughter travelled from her school in Kasna by the school bus and generally reached home by 3pm. When she failed to return by the evening that day, they got extremely worried,” said the SHO.

The girl, a student of Class 11, was later found by the police in an isolated area. “ She was found around midnight near an engineering college in the Knowledge Park area. We ordered a medical test for her,” said Singh.

According to police officials, the girl said in her statement that she had missed her school bus that day and was returning home on foot. The three men offered her a lift on the pretext of dropping her home and raped her in the moving vehicle after gagging her, said the police.

Police officials added that she was later abandoned in a secluded area by the roadside.

An FIR was registered against the accused under Section 376 (punishment for rape) and sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.

The police are on the lookout for the three accused.