Victim, parents booked for cheating, extortion

NALIYA GANGRAPE CASE

ACTING ON court orders, the Kutch (West) police have booked a woman — who had accused four BJP workers and five others of raping her for over a year in and around Naliya — for allegedly cheating her former husband, extorting money and issuing him death threats. Two separate FIRS were filed in this connection late on Thursday.

Kothara police station in Abdasa taluka filed an FIR late Thursday and booked the woman, her parents and one Ismile Bhukera, a photographer, for cheating, criminal breach of trust and extortion. Another FIR was filed by Jakhau police in the taluka for alleged criminal intimidation.

Both the FIRS were filed following orders from the judicial magistrate (first class) of Naliya on Monday and Tuesday. The woman’s ex-husband had moved the court alleging that days after their marriage, she ran away with jewellery and even extorted Rs 25,000 for divorce.

“We will first call the accused for recording her statement. If warranted, we will also arrest the accused,” Jakhau police subinspector Narendrasinh Jadeja said on Friday.

The complainant, who used to work as a teacher in a private school, claimed that he had married the woman on January 31, 2016. But she deserted him two days later and returned to her parents’ home with jewellery and clothes that he had bought her. The couple later signed a notarised divorce deed, the ex-husband claimed.

This was the second marriage of the woman. He was first married to a man living in Mumbai, but they got divorced. After divorcing the complainant, she remarried the same Mumbai man.

Besides making gangrape allegations, the 25-year-old woman has alleged the presence of a sex racket in Kutch region involving some of the accused and several others.

Eight of the nine accused have been arrested so far and the rape case will now be probed by a sitting judge of the Gujarat high court.