2 cops booked for ‘torture’ of pregnant woman, her sisters

GUWAHATI: Assam police on Tuesday booked two of its personnel for allegedly torturing, stripping and assaulting a pregnant woman and her two sisters inside a police outpost in Darrang district last week. The woman claimed to have suffered a miscarriage because of the assault.

Kuladhar Saikia, Assam’s director general of police,said, “A criminal case has been registered under relevant sections of the law against the in-charge of the police outpost, and the woman constable named in the complaint. Both of them have been placed under suspension.”

The action was taken after the sisters approached some media outlets on Tuesday alleging that the police had not taken any action for eight days on their complaint against the two personnel.

According to their complaint, the three sisters were picked up by the police on September 9 following the registration of a kidnapping case against their brother by the family of a woman he had eloped with earlier this month. The couple are from different religious backgrounds.

According to Saikia, the case has been registered under various sections, including sections 354 [assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty] and 342 [wrongful confinement] of the Indian Penal Code. The DGP also said that B Singha, deputy inspector general of police, has been asked to conduct an inquiry and submit a report within seven days.

One of the three sisters, a 28-year-old housewife, said she had complained to Amrit Bhuyan, superintendent of police, Darrang, on September 10 that she, her husband and her two siblings were stripped and beaten up by the two police personnel — woman constable Binita Boro and Mahendra Sarmah, the in-charge of the police outpost.

She claimed that police officials from Darrang district landed up at her residence in Guwahati at 1.30 am on September 9 and took her, her husband and her sisters to the Burha police outpost.

“The officer in-charge, Mahendra Sarmah, put a pistol to my head when I asked why he was taking us,” the complainant said on Monday. “They locked up my husband. First, they stripped my youngest sister and hit her with a baton. She is partially disabled in her left leg. They hit her on the same leg,” the complainant said.

The elder sister, 30, said she kept telling the policemen that she was pregnant. “They hit me on the stomach. I had a miscarriage,” she claimed.

Police, however, said they were not aware if she was pregnant or if she suffered a miscarriage since it was not mentioned in the complaint.