A girl is recovering from life-saving surgery in India to remove a three-inch nail allegedly driven into her skull by a paedophile.

The seven-year-old, from a village in the state of Uttar Pradesh, was taken to hospital on May 15 with the construction nail lodged inside her head.

It had pierced her neck, passing below the jaw and through the palate into the cranial cavity, where it partially entered her brain.

The girl’s mother told doctors her daughter had been abused by a man who drove the nail into her skull in an attempt to silence her, The Telegraph reports.

Officials cited by the Times of India said the girl had allegedly been injured during a sexual assault. Initial local reports suggested she had accidentally fallen onto the nail while playing.

King George’s Medical University

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