New Delhi: Jharkhand police on Wednesday, August 31, arrested Bharatiya Janata Party leader Seema Patra, wife of a retired IAS officer, on allegations of torturing her 29-year-old domestic help Sunita, the news agency PTI reported. Sunita is an Adivasi woman.
Acting on a tip-off from a government employee, the Ranchi police had rescued the woman from Patra’s residence last week and recorded the domestic help’s statement on Tuesday before a magistrate, sources said. This government employee was tipped off by Patra’s son, NDTV has reported.
Patra allegedly admitted her son to a hospital for exposing her, the news outlet has reported. “He was unwell,” she allegedly said, when reporters asked her why her son was in the hospital.
Patra had allegedly kept the woman captive in her residence in Ranchi’s posh Ashok Nagar area for several years.
Also read: BJP Suspends Jharkhand Leader Over Allegations of Brutal Torture of Domestic Worker
Patra was suspended by the BJP after a video of the woman, Sunita, narrating her ordeal, went viral on social media with demands for Patra’s arrest.
Several videos have since emerged, in which Sunita’s horrific abuse has been detailed. She was allegedly tortured, beaten with rods and iron utensils, forced to lick urine off the floor and had had her teeth knocked off with an iron rod, NDTV’s report has noted. Many of her teeth are missing, show the videos.
Patra has been booked under sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (punishment for voluntarily causing grievous hurt), 346 (wrongful confinement in secret), and 374 (unlawful compulsory labour against the will of a person) of the Indian Penal Code and also sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
Governor Ramesh Bais, too, on Tuesday asked DGP Neeraj Sinha as to why no action has been taken against the suspended BJP leader.
Members of various tribal outfits visited Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) where the woman is undergoing treatment and met her on Tuesday.
(With PTI inputs)
Note: This article, first published as a PTI report at 9.55 am on August 31, 2022, has been republished at 1.30 pm with additional details.