‘Gang raped, tortured’: MP builder married teacher in 2019. Her horror starts

The 32-year-old woman, a school teacher, told the police that she didn’t complain earlier as he made multiple videos of her. But she filed a FIR fearing that she and her family in Chhattisgarh may be killed

BHOPAL: A builder In Madhya Pradesh’s Indore has been arrested after his wife complained that she was locked up in his farmhouse for nearly two years, sodomised, tortured with cigarette butts and repeatedly gang-raped by his friends. The main accused, Rajesh Vishwakarma’s employee, and two friends have also been arrested.

The Indore police said the farmhouse of the MP builder, where the woman who was raped and tortured, was locked up for nearly two years, has been demolished (Sushil Kumar/HT File Photo)

Police said Rajesh Vishwakarma finally let her go home in north Chhattisgarh’s Bemtara late last year. The 32-year-old woman, a school teacher before her marriage, however, returned to Indore city about a week ago to file a police complaint against her husband because, she said, she had come to believe that she and her family could be killed. On Sunday, the woman filed a formal complaint at the city’s Shipra police station.

District collector Manish Singh ordered officials to demolish the farmhouse where she was locked up after collecting the evidence. The illegal structure was razed to the ground by a joint team of police, district administration and municipal corporation by Monday evening, police said.

Vishwakarma’s lawyer Neeraj Soni said the builder is being framed. “The woman was demanding ₹1 crore and also threatened to implicate him in a false gang-rape case. He is innocent,” Neeraj Soni said.

“The woman, who works as a school teacher, met the builder Rajesh Vishwakarma through a matrimonial site in 2019. They got married in November 2019… No family members of Vishwakarma attended the marriage. Later, the woman shifted to Indore with Vishwakarma and started living in a farmhouse in the Shipra area. For 15 days, they were living like a normal couple but later, the accused started torturing her,” said city superintendent of police (CSP), Pankaj Dixit said,

“He took away all the clothes of her and forced her to live naked. The woman was raped, sodomised and singed with cigarettes several times. He used to arrange doctors for her treatment at the farmhouse as she was injured badly. In November 2021, the accused let the woman go on the condition that she will not speak about this to anyone,” said the police officer. Dixit said the police have also arrested Rajesh’s employee, Ankesh Baghel, and his two friends, Vivek Vishwakarma and Vipin Bhadoriya.

The woman told local news outlets that she didn’t speak about her torture after marriage. The accused, she said, had made multiple video clips of her when she was raped by him and his friends, and she had reconciled to her past. “But I recently came to know that he has sent two men to kill me and my family,” she alleged.

The accused, who were arrested under section 376 d (gang-rape), 377 (unnatural sex), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC, were produced before the court on Monday and sent to jail.

Police said Rajesh Vishwakarma’s family ended relations with him in 2018 because of his past conduct.