Zirakpur sexual harassment case Pastor Bajinder appears in Mohali court
Self-styled pastor Bajinder Singh, against whom non-bailable warrants (NBWs) were issued on March 3 in connection with a 2018 sexual harassment case, appeared in a Mohali court on Tuesday along with six other accused
Self-styled pastor Bajinder Singh, against whom non-bailable warrants (NBWs) were issued on March 3 in connection with a 2018 sexual harassment case, appeared in a Mohali court on Tuesday along with six other accused.
Bajinder, who runs a church at Majri, was arrested at the Delhi airport on July 20, 2018, for ‘raping’ a Zirakpur woman. The pastor was about to board a flight to London to attend an event when he was nabbed.
The pastor’s aides — Jatinder, Akbar Ali, Sitar Ali, Sucha Singh, Rajesh Chaudhary and Sandeep Pehlwan — have also been named in the FIR for ‘assaulting’ the woman. The court had also issued NBWs against Sandeep and Akbar as they failed to appear before the court.
A police team from Sohana accompanied the accused to the court fearing backlash from the victim’s family.
On March 2, an FIR was registered against Bajinder in a separate sexual harassment case in Jalandhar district. Bajinder is out on bail in the Zirakpur case. When asked why the pastor was not taken in the custody in connection with the Jalandhar case despite his appearance in the court, a senior Mohali police officer said he had not received any intimation from his Jalandhar counterparts in this regard.
In the Zirakpur case, the victim, who runs a dhaba, told the police that Bajinder came in contact with her in 2017 and lured her on the pretext of taking her board.
Police said the woman became a part of his team of volunteers who looked after security at his events. The victim alleged that Bajinder raped her at his house in Sector 63, Mohali, and even filmed the act. She said the accused threatened to post the video on social media if she complained or did not agree to his demands.
She finally filed a complaint in April 2018 following which the accused went into hiding and police issued a lookout notice against him.
A case was registered under IPC Sections 376 (rape), 420 (cheating), 354 (outraging modesty of woman), 294 (obscenity), 323 (causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) and Section 67 (transmitting sexually explicit content) of the Information Technology (IT) Act at Zirakpur police station.