Ghaziabad ‘gangrape’ case: DCW seeks high-level probe

The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has written to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for a high-level probe in the case case and also recommended “action against the woman under Indian Penal Code Section 182 in case it is found beyond doubt that she filed a false case”

The Ghaziabad police on Saturday took into custody the 38-year-old woman who alleged kidnapping and gangrape against five suspects. The action came after she got discharged from GTB Hospital earlier in the day.

The 38-year-old woman had alleged that she was abducted from Nandgram Ashram Road in Ghaziabad on October 16. (Sakib Ali/ HT)

On the other hand, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has written to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for a high-level probe in the case case and also recommended “action against the woman under Indian Penal Code Section 182 in case it is found beyond doubt that she filed a false case.”

The woman’s brother in Ghaziabad lodged a police case against five initial suspects for illegal confinement and gangrape at Nandgram police station. Police said that his role is also under scanner.

The Ghaziabad police on October 20 made a disclosure that the kidnapping and gangrape case was fabricated to settle scores with the five initial suspects over a dispute of a property worth ₹53 lakh at Kabir Nagar in Delhi.

However, police arrested three friends of the woman instead and said that the alleged kidnapping and gangrape case did not take place.

The police said they substantiated the “confessional statements” of the three suspects – Azad Tehsin, a resident of Welcome in Delhi; Gaurav Sharan, a resident of Shivam Garden in Badalpur (Gautam Budh Nagar); and Mohammad Afzal, a resident of Kaila Bhatta in Ghaziabad — with forensic and electronic evidence.

Taking suo motu cognisance, the Ghaziabad police registered an FIR under several IPC sections and named her three friends, besides booking the woman and one local reporter from Delhi, who the police said “accepted a payment of ₹5,000 to sensationalise the case.”

“The woman has been taken into custody. She is undergoing her CrPC 164 statements before a magistrate. The recording of statements is in progress. Once the formalities get complete, she will be formally arrested. A team from the National Commission for Women has already visited us and taken the details of the case investigation,” said Muniraj G, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Ghaziabad.

Police sources said that the woman has maintained her version of kidnapping and gangrape and said that the five initial suspects were involved in the crime.

“She still stands by her statement. We have come to know that her friend Azad purchased a piece of iron from one of the scrap dealers at ‘Kadam Ki Pulia’ in Nand Nagri area. He gave this iron piece to the woman,” said an officer attached to the police investigation.

The said iron piece was termed as a “foreign object” by doctors at GTB Hospital.

The DCW had issued a notice to the Ghaziabad police on the matter on Wednesday. DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal also tweeted about the alleged gang-rape in a very graphic manner and likened the incident to the December 2012 gang-rape case of a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in Delhi.

HT tried to contact Maliwal for her response over the disclosures made by the Ghaziabad police but she did not respond to calls on Friday and even on Saturday. She claimed that the woman was brutalised by an “iron rod.”

The SSP on Saturday further said, “Even if the woman maintains her statements about the kidnapping and gangrape before the magistrate, the police have enough evidence to substantiate that the case was fake and never happened as projected.”

The DCW in a statement said, “The commission had received a call on its 181 helpline on October 18 from a staff nurse at GTB Hospital, who informed that a case of sexual assault had been reported at the hospital and that the commission should send a counsellor in the matter. Immediately, a counsellor from the commission was sent to the hospital and she saw that the survivor was bleeding. Upon interaction with the survivor, she alleged that she had been gangraped by five men for two days and they inserted an iron rod inside her”.

“She alleged that she had been tied up and dumped on the side of a road in a sack. The commission recorded her statements. An FIR under Section 342/376d of the IPC was registered by UP Police in the matter on the complaint of the brother of the survivor on October 18 itself,” the statement further read.

During the discharge process on Saturday, the authorities at GTB Hospital in Delhi said that the present vitals of the woman were stable.

“She was investigated and treated in accordance with hospital protocols and all formalities were completed. She has been discharged and her condition is stable,” a GTB Hospital spokesperson said in a statement.