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Dalit woman allegedly raped in MP accuses cops of forcing them to withdraw case
According to the FIR, the woman worked as domestic help and lived in a room her employer provided her. Bhadoriya allegedly barged into her room along with the other accused and raped her
The family of a 19-year-old Dalit woman, who was allegedly gang-raped by two upper-caste men, including the grandson of her employer, in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior district on Sunday, has accused police of assaulting them when they approached them to register the case on Monday. Police were pressuring them to withdraw their complaint, they added.
The police registered a First Information Report (FIR) in the case after additional police superintendent Suman Gurjar intervened.
Police superintendent Amit Singh Sanghi said the FIR has been registered against Aditya Bhadoriya, 28, and an unidentified person under Indian Penal Code’s Section 376 D (gang-rape) and under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. No arrest has been made so far.
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“We are also probing the allegations against the police as well,” said Sanghi.
According to the FIR, the woman worked as domestic help and lived in a room her employer provided her. Bhadoriya allegedly barged into her room along with the other accused and raped her. When the employer came to know about the assault, he threatened the woman and her family, according to the FIR.
When the woman’s parents approached the local police to register their complaint, they were allegedly assaulted by the personnel there.
The woman was sent for medical examination and later shifted to a shelter home.
“I was beaten up with broom by police personnel at the police station. They tried to put pressure on me for withdrawing the complaint,” said the woman.
The police station in-charge Ajay Pawar accused the woman and her parents of lying. “They were not beaten up or assaulted by anyone. The victim lodged a fake complaint. In the preliminary investigation, we found that the accused was an eyewitness to a murder case involving her uncle...[the woman] was recently in contact with the accused in the uncle’s case. We are investigating the matter.”
