‘Raped at gunpoint, thrown off terrace, teen now out of danger’

LUCKNOW: A 19-year-old school student, who was allegedly raped by her neighbour in her house at gunpoint and thrown off the terrace as she tried to raise an alarm over the incident in a village under Dilari police station limits in Moradabad on January 4-5 night, was out of danger now, the police said on Friday. The woman suffered severe injuries from the fall and was undergoing treatment at Deendayal Upadhyay Government Hospital in Moradabad, said Anoop Singh, the circle officer (CO) of Dilari.

The incident occurred when the woman’s neighbour Arvind Singh, 30, a father of two, sneaked into the student’s house through the terrace and allegedly raped her at gunpoint.

When she sought to raise an alarm to awaken her sleeping family members, Arvind allegedly pushed her off the terrace, the police said.

The woman’s family members, who rushed her to a nearby government hospital in Thakurdwara (Moradabad), said the local police initially did not include the charge of rape in the First Information Report (FIR) lodged over the incident.

The police only included charges of outraging modesty, trespass and causing hurt in the FIR lodged on the day of the incident, but they included the rape charge after the intervention from Moradabad’s senior superintendent of police Prabhakar Choudhury. SSP Chaudhary said the victim, after gaining consciousness, recorded her statement before a magistrate under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (on January 5), in which she accused her neighbour of raping her. Accordingly, the rape charge too was added in the FIR and the accused arrested and sent to jail under judicial custody, the SSP said. SHO Singh denied the allegation of the woman’s family members and said that the police performed their duties properly. All charges of the incident were included in the FIR while the rape charge was added after the victim made her statement under section 164 of the CrPC, he said.