Helps cops nab man who raped her, tracks him on FB

TOURIST RAPED The 22yearold victim was allegedly raped by a merchant navy official in a Paharganj hotel, suspect arrested

did not remember the face of the man who allegedly raped her. All she had was his name and a faint memory of his built.

Her three “friends” who left the room in a Paharganj hotel before Jaswant Singh, a merchant navy official, entered and raped her on May 16, dissuaded her from filing a complaint.

But, the 22-year-old American woman of Indian origin was sharp enough to access Singh’s Facebook account to save his photograph that she later passed on to the police and eventually led to his identification and arrest.

Speaking to HT, the woman’s lawyer, Surender Singh Hooda, said that if not for her presence of mind, Singh would have not been arrested.

“After the incident, the three men whom she addressed as friends told her that it was Jaswant Singh raped her and that he was not a nice man. They told her they were sorry for what happened and that it was not worth going to the police,” Hooda, a Supreme Court advocate on record, said.

“Despite being dissuaded to pursue a police case, she instantly searched Singh on Facebook, sent him a friend request and then saved his picture for record. She then passed on that photo to the police, which led to his arrest. If she did not have a photo, the police would not have been able to put a face to this person,” the lawyer said.

Hooda said that when her client went to the police station to file a complaint, the investigating officer, also a woman, refused to take her complaint in English.

“The IO insisted that the victim gives her complaint in Hindi as she did not understand English. The victim told her that she was not comfortable in Hindi and will not be able to state the facts correctly, but the IO still insisted,” he said.

“It is only after we intervened and told them that we will take the matter to higher authorities that she consulted her SHO and he directed that the complaint be taken in English,” Hooda said. The police, however, denied this claim.

The woman had come to India in December last year for a family wedding and stayed back to tour North India. She reached Delhi on May 13 and checked into a hotel in Paharganj, where she then met three men—Amanpal Singh, Varinder and Mukesh— whom she befriended.

According to the police, the accused, Jaswant Singh, who was arrested from Paharganj on May 24, was an aide of the three.

In her statement, the woman said that the men told her that they were “nice” people and that she should trust them. After the woman got drunk, the men left the room and a third man—Jaswant Singh, entered the room who allegedly raped her. When the woman resisted the assault, Singh reportedly told the woman that “it was ok”.

The woman’s friends reportedly convinced her to accompany them to Jind to take her mind off what had happened. On May 19, the woman then went to Patiala to meet her relative who then convinced her to file a rape complaint.

“I told him over and over again and tried to push him but could not,” the woman said in her complaint. She further stated that she was in a state of shock and did not get any support from her friends who constantly tried to make it seem as if nothing had happened,” she told the police.

“They (friends), never called it rape. They said it was a ‘dhoka’ with me. They told me that the courts would take too long and will keep me in India for months,” she said in her complaint to the police.

“They (the three men) said I should not involve the police in the matter and that they will take revenge on the accused. They insisted that I should forget about it all and spend time with them in their village,” she said in her complaint to the police.

Though the three men have not been made co-accused in the case, Hooda said that they too should be booked in the case.

“The men first left the room unattended making way for Jaswant to enter. Then they returned immediately after Jaswant left. How did they leave the room and then returned immediately after the rape,” the lawyer said.

“It shows they were a party to the entire plan. They clearly helped Jawant. Also, they then told the victim to not file a complaint. Why did the police not book them?,” Hooda said.

The police, however, said that they are yet to probe the role of the three men as the woman had accused only Singh in the case.