New Delhi: A man in Uttar Pradesh’s Ambedkar Nagar district has accused the police of watering down his complaint in an alleged case of gangrape of his 21-year-old daughter who later took her own life.
The father of the girl alleged that police deliberately did not mention rape in the FIR, only sticking to charges under abetment to suicide against the three accused men.
The three accused persons have been arrested, with one of them shot in an alleged “encounter” by police on August 20.
The woman was found hanging by her dupatta in her room on August 17, a couple of hours after she was brought home by her father, he said.
According to the father, on August 16 around 9 pm, the girl went away with three men – Satyam Yadav, Hari Shyam Yadav and Samir Khan. The three men coaxed her and took her to Satyam Yadav’s house, alleged the father in the FIR.
The following day, August 17, at around 11 am, he alleged the three men dropped his daughter near a junior high school. From there, he managed to bring her home. According to the FIR, the girl narrated her experience to her father, telling him that the three men abused her verbally and “tortured” her.
After hearing her, the man said he went to work. But two hours later, the girl locked her room and allegedly hung herself with a dupatta.
The FIR did not mention any sexual violence. It invoked charges under Section 108 of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, which deals with abetment to suicide.
However, the father later alleged that the local police officer, a sub-inspector, watered down his complaint and ignored the allegations of rape. The man approached the district police chief with a complaint.
Ambedkar Nagar Superintendent of Police, Kaustabh, said a departmental inquiry had been initiated against the SI. The officer said that the SI made the girl’s family draft the complaint in a hurried manner “giving them no time to write it after giving it a thought.”
The police later added gang rape charges to the FIR.
Talking to The Wire, the girl’s father, a senior Hindi media journalist, said the police officer at the police station Rajesultanpur deliberately toned down the severity of the crime.
“He insisted that the rape sections could be added later. I could not digest that and approached the SSP who got the section added on the basis of my statement,” said the girl’s father.
He alleged that his daughter told him she was raped.
The police initially arrested Satyam Yadav and Samir Khan. On August 20, police arrested the third accused Hari Shyam Yadav when he was killed in an alleged encounter near the Gorakhpur Link Expressway service road.
Additional SP East Shyam Deo said Yadav fired at the police team. Yadav got injured after being hit in the leg by retaliatory firing, said the officer.
The girl’s father said he was not fully satisfied with the police action and demanded that the administration book the accused under the stringent Gangsters Act and demolish their homes with a bulldozer.
