Tribal woman stripped, assaulted, BJP leader’s wife named in FIR

The alleged incident happened at Waluj village of Ashti tehsil in Beed district on October 15. Dhas has been a 3-time MLA from Ashti, and is popularly known in the region as Anna. The complaint is that his wife, accompanied by two men, Raghu Pawar and Rahul Jagdale, went to the village to allegedly take over the land cultivated by the family of the complainant

Mumbai: The wife of a BJP legislator in Maharashtra and two others were booked on Sunday after it emerged that they had stripped and beaten up a tribal woman over a land dispute.

The Beed police filed a first information report (FIR) for molestation and applied provisions under the SC ST Prevention of Atrocities Act against Prajkta Dhas, the wife of BJP legislator Suresh Dhas (in photo), and two others. (HT Photo)

The Beed police filed a first information report (FIR) for molestation and applied provisions under the SC ST Prevention of Atrocities Act against Prajkta Dhas, the wife of BJP legislator Suresh Dhas, and two others. Late on Monday, Suresh Dhas who is a Member of the Legislative Council, claimed that the charges against his wife were politically motivated and demanded a forensic probe of the video of the women being stripped and beaten.

The alleged incident happened at Waluj village of Ashti tehsil in Beed district on October 15. Dhas has been a 3-time MLA from Ashti, and is popularly known in the region as Anna. The complaint is that his wife, accompanied by two men, Raghu Pawar and Rahul Jagdale, went to the village to allegedly take over the land cultivated by the family of the complainant. The police registered a case a week later on October 22nd only after a video of the woman being stripped and assaulted went viral on social media.

“I was working on the farm which we have held for two generations when Raghu Pawar and Rahul Jagdale came with some people and tried to claim the land. Pawar and Jagdale completely stripped me in the presence of my family. Prajkta Dhas who was standing there kept provoking the two of them to beat me up,” the complainant has said in her statement. “When my husband and daughter in law stepped forward to rescue me, both Pawar and Jagdale ran away. I too ran after them the way I was. Prajkta Dhas came back again with some goons but by this time the police had reached the spot so they could not attack us,” she told police.

Deputy superintendent of police in Beed, Abhijit Shivkar, said, “The land originally belonged to a certain Sahasrabuddhe family, but now most of it is under government reservation. We will ascertain the reasons for the attack on the woman.” Recently,

Raghu Pawar, a close aide of Dhas, and the complainant’s family had become embroiled in a dispute over the land.

Suresh Dhas denied the allegations against his wife and called the complaint politically motivated. “My wife has nothing to do with the matter. Her name is being involved for political reasons. I have demanded an inquiry and also a forensic probe of the alleged video. The truth will come out after the investigation,” he claimed on Monday. “I have been in politics for over three decades and all the people know that I have never done caste-based politics,” he added.

Rupali Chakankar, chairperson of the State women’s commission too has taken cognizance of the assault and posted on X that the commission would “follow up until the woman gets justice.”