A 22-year-old woman from Noida, who went to visit Sai Upvan city forest in Ghaziabad with her 23-year-old fiance, was allegedly sexually harassed for hours and subjected to extortion by three cops who were on duty at a police response vehicle (PRV) of the Ghaziabad police during an incident on September 16.
An FIR was registered on the basis of the woman’s complaint as the suspects continued harassing her by way of phone calls and even visited her house after the incident.
The incident came to light when the woman underwent a series of ordeal and dialled the police emergency number for help.
The Ghaziabad police officers said that the call landed at the control room of the Delhi police and they forwarded the complaint to their counterparts in Ghaziabad.
The couple, a woman from Noida and her fiance who had come to meet her from Bulandshahr, went for an outing together to Sai Upvan city forest on September 16. They were sitting together in Sai Upvan, which is adjacent to the Hindon River metro station and alongside the GT Road.
The police identified the three suspects as constable Rakesh Kumar, Digambar Kumar – a home guard, and, one other unidentified man who allegedly held the couple captive and harassed them for about three hours.
Upon complaint, the three were booked under IPC sections 354a (1)(ii) for physical contact and advances involving explicit sexual overtures and demand for sexual favours, 323 for voluntarily causing hurt, 504 for intentional insult and 342 for wrongful confinement besides levying the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act at Kotwali police station on September 28.
The police said that based on the investigation, they will also levy the provisions of the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act if any of the suspects do not belong to the same category.
“It was around 12 noon when three men arrived on a PRV and started threatening us. They slapped my fiance and one of them demanded ₹10,000 for letting us go. We requested them with folded hands and even touched their feet but they did not budge. Later, Rakesh Kumar behaved badly and started forcing me to get physical with him. The third man also demanded ₹5.5 lakhs… We were held there for three hours during which the suspects repeatedly touched me inappropriately…,” the woman said in the FIR.
The harassment continued even after the couple was made to pay ₹1000 to the suspects through the woman’s online wallet to let them off.
The woman in the FIR said that Rakesh Kumar also called her on September 19 of which she has a call recording and they also visited her house on September 22 when they heard that she had given a complaint against them.
The Ghaziabad police upon inquiry registered the FIR on September 28 and said that the three suspects were absconding.
“We registered an FIR after the incident of harassment came to light with the couple. Of the three men, Rakesh was identified as a police constable on PRV and has been suspended. The second one was identified as home guard and we have written to his department to initiate action. The third person will be identified soon. The three are absconding and we are trying to arrest them soon,” said Nimish Patil, ACP (city 1).
The ACP said that the woman initially did not report the incident for several days but later she dialled the police emergency number when the suspects continued troubling her.
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