Girl 'gang-raped by nurse and four others' in India hospital

India has been rocked by a series of high profile sexual assaults in recent years. Photo / Getty Images

A four-year-old girl has reportedly been gang-raped by a nurse and four other people while being treated in an intensive care unit for a snake bite.

The girl was attacked while alone in hospital near Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India.

Local police official Mahesh Srivastava said that the girl told her grandmother she was raped by a hospital attendant and four others on Saturday night.

He confirmed that one man was in custody and that police were looking for the four others involved.

Police have also asked for CCTV footage and are trying to determine why the girl was left alone in the ICU.

The officer said that the girl had been in the hospital for four days and was being treated for a snake bite.

The hospital is located 250km southwest of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh.

India has been rocked by a series of high profile sexual assaults in recent years, including the gang-rape and murder of a student on a moving New Delhi bus in 2012.

That attack galvanised a country where widespread violence against women had long been quietly accepted.

The government has passed a series of laws increasing punishment for rape of an adult to 20 years in prison and earlier this year approved the death penalty for people convicted of raping children under age 12.

However, it's rare for more than a few weeks to pass without another brutal sexual assault being reported.