18 including women booked in Atrocity Act case

18 persons, including women, have been booked for molesting, assaulting, and abusing a woman doctor using her caste name during a procession in Navi Mumbai. 15 of the accused are unidentified. The complainant and her advocate have lodged a complaint with the police, but no arrests have been made yet. The accused have been booked under various sections of the IPC and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

Navi Mumbai

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Around 18 persons including women have been booked by Rabale police for molesting, assaulting and abusing a woman doctor using her caste name. Of the 18 accused persons, 15 persons are unidentified.

The incident happened on Dusshera day at Ghansoli village during the procession for immersion of the goddess. While the procession was passing by the village, an unidentified man in his twenties, threw gulal on the complainant’s daughter which the complainant did not like. After sometime, the same person was seen in their society’s compound and he forcefully applied gulal on the complainant’s face and body and he ran away into the procession. The complainant followed him and found him and later slapped him for the act. Meanhwile, the man’s sister who is known to the complainant started abusing and assaulting the complainant questioning about her act of slapping her brother.

Later, a mob of more than 10 people joined the woman identified as Suvarna Naik and started abusing her for her caste. According to the complainant, Naik also threatened to get her vacated from her house. When the complainant and her advocate Swapnil Jagtap went to the police station with the complaint that night, the same mob tried to terrorise the complainant by banging at her door repeatedly.

Later, on Wednesday the complainant visited the police station again and registered the case against 18 of them. “We are investigating the case and no arrests have been made yet,” a police officer from Rabale police station said. Of the 18 accused, the three have been identified as Varsha Naik, Suvarna Naik and Pratik Patil.

The accused have been booked under the sections 354 (Assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 ( insulting someone intentionally to provoke them), 506 (criminal intimidation), 427 (mischief), 141 (unlawful assembly), 143 (member of unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting) and 149 (every member of an unlawful assembly is liable for an offense committed by the group)of the IPC, along with the relevant sections of the The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.