Dalit girl gang-raped in MP, family accuses cops of assault

BHOPAL/GWALIOR: A 19-year-old Dalit girl was allegedly gangraped by two upper-caste men in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior district on Sunday, the police said on Wednesday. The victim and her family members accused the police of assaulting them when they approached the police to register a case on Monday.

Family members alleged that police were putting pressure on them to withdraw the complaint. The police registered FIR only after the ASP, Gwalior (east) Suman Gurjar, intervened, they said. Gwalior SP Amit Singh Sanghi said the department was probing the accusations made against the police by the victim and her parents.

He said the FIR had been registered against Aditya Bhadoriya, 28, and an unidentified person under section 376 d (gang rape) of the IPC and sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. “No arrest has been made so far. Police are probing the matter,” Sanghi added.

According to the FIR, the woman works as a domestic help in the residence of a man identified as Ganga Singh Bhadoriya in the Morar area where she and her family have been given a room to stay.on Sunday night, Bhadoriya’s grandson Aditya and another person barged into the room and raped the woman. Later, the victim with her parents approached the Morar police station where they alleged they were assaulted by police personnel said OP Sharma, a special public prosecutor of Gwalior district court.

Morar police station in-charge Ajay Pawar denied that the woman and her family were beaten by the police.

“The girl and her parents are lying. They were not beaten up or assaulted by anyone. In the preliminary prob, we found that the accused, Aditya Singh, was an eyewitness in a murder case of his uncle and the victim recently came in contact with the accused of his uncle’s murder. Probe is on,” Pawar said.