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Bhopal: Daughter of RPF officer allegedly gang-raped 200m from police station
Police took 24 hours to lodge FIR because of a dispute over jurisdiction of the crime scene, four accused have been arrested.
The daughter of a Railway Protection Force (RPF) assistant sub-inspector was allegedly gang-raped, robbed and abandoned near a railway track in central Bhopal on Tuesday evening, police said on Thursday.
All the four accused, identified as ragpickers, have been arrested.
The FIR was lodged 24 hours after the crime was committed because of an intra-police dispute. Though the woman — a civil services aspirant — was allegedly raped barely 200 metres from the Habibganj government railway police (GRP) station, they insisted that the crime scene fell in the MP Nagar police station limits.
When relatives of the victim approached the MP Nagar police station on Wednesday morning, they were reportedly told that the area falls in the Habibganj police station limits.
A case was registered only after the victim’s family escalated the matter.
GRP superintendent of police Anita Malviya, however, denied that there was any delay on their part in registering the case. “Nobody met us immediately after the crime. Habibganj police station informed us about it at 7 pm on Wednesday, and the case was registered within half an hour. We have arrested all the four accused,” she said.
Bhopal DIG Santosh Singh suspended sub-inspector RN Tekam, posted at the MP Nagar police station, for allegedly refusing to register a case.
Anita Malviya said the accused waylaid the victim while she was returning home from a coaching institute around 7pm. They dragged her to a secluded place and gang-raped her. They also snatched her mobile phone and jewellery.
The victim, in her statement to the police, said the accused tried to strangle her after the rape. Though they left the spot thinking she was dead,the victim later returned home and informed her parents about her ordeal.
The girl was admitted to a government hospital. She was discharged later, after her condition was declared stable.
Sexual violence and crimes against women are high in Madhya Pradesh, where 11 women were raped daily — and six gang-raped every week — on an average last year. Over half these victims were minors. To check this, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh plans to make rape punishable by death.
