‘Police inaction’ forces Indore girl to commit suicide

BHOPAL: A 17-year-old girl allegedly hung herself at her house in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore on Thursday after leaving a suicide note in which she wrote that she was being stalked, sexually harassed and blackmailed by a man in her neighbourhood, the police said on Friday. Her family claimed that the police sat on their complaint against the man for over 50 hours.

The Class 12 student said in her suicide note, which was found by the police, that the man, identified as 22-year-old Milan Chouhan, was harassing her, and had uploaded her photograph on Facebook. He put his picture with hers in one frame to make it seem like they were a couple, the note said.

“Father, I am sorry. It is not my fault. He was harassing and blackmailing me. He has put my photo on Facebook which has ruined my image. He also made me write two letters in your name,” the girl wrote in the note.

“He harasses me whenever I go to school and forcibly tries to talk to me. I am fed up with everything. I do not want your image to get tarnished in any way. People are blaming me for all this. Sorry, forgive me, father, I thought that if I am not there, then all this will end.”

The distraught father said the family had visited the police station three times since Tuesday, but the police did not act. The family said they went to the police station on Wednesday morning, but were told that they couldn’t lodge a complaint because no woman constable was present. The police went to the man’s house on Thursday morning but did not do anything, the family claimed.

“On Thursday morning, when my daughter and I went to the police station, a female ASI (assistant sub-inspector) was busy on her mobile phone and did not even look at us. We did not have a paper to write the complaint and she refused to even lend us a piece of paper and pen. They treated the entire matter very lightly. Had they acted promptly, my girl would have been alive,” the father said.

Indore’s deputy inspector general of police Harinarayanchari Mishra said Milan Chouhan, his father Vinod Chouhan, and his brother Ashish Chouhan have been booked for abetment to suicide (section 306) and criminal intimidation (section 506) and were taken into custody late on Thursday night.

“I have suspended a head constable and a sub-inspector of police of Dwarkapuri police station for the delay in (taking) action,” Mishra added.

Police said the girl’s younger brother told them that his sister was being harassed by Milan Chouhan, who lives in the same neighbourhood.

The girl’s family came to know on Tuesday that Chouhan had taken her photograph and uploaded it on Facebook and other social media platforms.

The man refused to delete the photographs when the girl’s brother asked him to do so, the police added.

Police said that on Thursday evening the girl’s mother scolded her. The mother apparently told the girl that she must have been in some way responsible for what was happening. She asked why the man was harassing her and not anyone else. Her mother’s scolding perhaps proved to be the tipping point for the girl, who went into her room and hung herself, the police said.

On Friday morning, residents of the neighbourhood staged a ‘chakka-jam’ at Indore’s Phooti Kothi crossing for half an hour to protest against the police’s failure to take timely action.

THE DISTRAUGHT FATHER SAID THE FAMILY HAD VISITED THE POLICE STATION THREE TIMES SINCE TUESDAY, BUT THE POLICE DID NOT ACT