In a shocking incident, a 32-year-old woman was allegedly raped by a man in an abandoned house in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district, while her two minor children, aged 2 and 10, pleaded for mercy.

According to the FIR, the main accused, Mohd Shehzad, 25, whom the victim knew, offered the the woman and her children a lift in his car.

Two of his accomplices were also inside the vehicle.

Once the woman and her children boarded the car, Shehzad drove to an isolated place and forcibly took the woman inside the abandoned house and raped her while the other two men stood guard outside with her children.

When some passers-by spotted the children and asked them what they were doing at the place, the two men fled.

SHO Pankaj Tyagi said: "The woman was sent for medical examination. The three men have been booked under IPC sections 376 (rape) and 120B (criminal conspiracy). The accused are absconding but teams have been deployed to arrest them at the earliest." (SJ/IANS)