New Delhi: Weeks after it demolished a shopping complex and a bakery owned by a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader over allegations of rape in Ayodhya, the police administration in the high profile district is under fire for allegedly delaying action after a Dalit girl employed as a sanitation worker in the Ram Janmabhoomi complex was allegedly gangraped.
Talking to television media channels, the victim has alleged that when she went to lodge a complaint against the accused persons, the local police station officer initially tried to dissuade her from pursuing legal action and that the case got registered only after she approached senior officers.
Ayodhya police, facing widespread criticism on social media after the girl’s statement was widely shared, has dismissed the allegations and said that the girl’s statement was registered before a judicial magistrate according to due process.
“No police personnel is present there,” said Ayodhya police.
So far, the police have arrested seven persons in connection with the crime — Sharik and two minors on charges of gangrape; Vinay Pasi, Shiva Sonkar, Udit Singh and Satyam for molestation.
In her statement to the media, the girl said that eight persons were involved in the crime. The Wire cannot independently verify the content of her police complaint or her judicial statement, as the police has not made the FIR or the sections invoked in it available.
On the basis of the girl’s statements to the media, it is alleged that she was gangraped multiple times from August 16-25 by a boy she had been in a relationship with and other men known to him. The girl alleged that the men also made videos of the sexual assault and blackmailed her saying if she went to the police, they would harm her family.
“On August 28, when I was going to the women police station to register my complaint they called me and threatened me that if I complained they would do the same to my sisters and that it won’t be good for my family,” she told television channel AajTak.
The girl, a college student, also works as a sanitation worker in the Ram Janmabhoomi complex. She alleged that her romantic partner invited her to a guesthouse where four of his friends were already waiting. The two had been in a relationship for a year, she said.
She alleged that she tried to escape from the room but they overpowered her. Due to an impact on her head, she lost consciousness, she said. Further, the girl alleged that she was then raped by the accused persons. When she woke up, she found only two of the men in the room.
Afterwards, she alleged, they took her to a garage and raped her again. Since they had made videos of her, they used it as a blackmailing tool to summon her on other occasions, she mentioned. “Due to fear, I didn’t tell the police or my family.”
The girl also claimed that when she went to the police, they initially refused to register her complaint and even raised doubts over her allegations.
“They said my allegations were fake and that they would first probe the case and then take action,” she said.
An FIR was registered in the case finally on September 2 at the Cantonment police station. The girl said that even after waiting for 36 hours she was not given a copy of the FIR.
Posting a clip of her narrating her ordeal on a television channel, SP president Akhilesh Yadav said that the case had revealed the “main reason” behind the “increasing torture and atrocities” against women in Uttar Pradesh. “How a victim has to go through so much torture to get an FIR registered due to some insensitive police personnel,” Yadav said on X.
The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister demanded that strict punitive action be taken against the responsible police personnel.
“Due to the complications in getting an FIR registered, so many criminal cases are not recorded. This emboldens criminals,” said Yadav.
Senior superintendent of police Ayodhya, Raj Karan Nayyar said the girl’s statement was registered before a judicial magistrate under BNSS Section 183 on September 3, a day after an FIR was lodged on the basis of her written complaint.
In her statement, she said has accused three persons of “durachar (rape)” and the others for outraging her modesty, said the officer.
Ayodhya police on September 17 issued a note in which it denied any delay in getting the case registered.
“As soon as the victim approached the police, a case was registered and the statement of the victim was recorded before a judicial magistrate,” said the police.
The Dalit girl’s rape case comes on the heels of another much-talked-about rape case that was reported in the same district last month. Moeed Khan, a leader of SP and his staff members at the bakery he owns, were arrested on charges of raping a minor girl from the Nishad OBC community.
The minor girl also had to undergo an abortion. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) linked the matter to the Opposition SP and highlighted the fact that the accused Moeed Khan was associated with Awadhesh Prasad, the SP’s Member of Parliament from Faizabad constituency.
Chief minister Adityanath even raised the case to target the SP in the Uttar Pradesh assembly on August 1. Adityanath focused on the victim’s caste identity.
A day later, Adityanath met the parents of the victim and assured them that the guilty would not be spared at any cost. Following this, the district administration demolished the bakery owned by Khan, alleging that it was an unauthorised construction built on government land. The administration also demolished a multi-storey complex belonging to Khan, alleging that it was illegally built although it stood there for eight years.
Note: The report was updated with the Ayodhya Police’s response on September 17, 2024.
