The Maharashtra Police has booked three individuals, identified as Wasim Sayyed, Arif Khan, and Mustakim Sayyed aka Raj Sayyed, for sexually assaulting a 22-year-old girl repeatedly and threatening her with death. The accused also recorded obscene videos of the woman and blackmailed her to fulfill their sexual demands. The incident has been reported from Nashik district of Maharashtra.
The accused have been booked under sections 376(2)(n), 376D (gang rape), 377 (Unnatural offenses), 313 (Causing miscarriage without woman’s consent), 384 (extortion), 354D (Stalking), 341 (Punishment for wrongful restraint), 467 (Forgery), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 471, 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
The girl, as per the FIR, has been under torture and has been sexually assaulted since July 2020. However, she was threatened by the accused to keep quiet if she wanted her family members to stay alive. The girl gathered the courage to narrate her ordeal to her cousin, who helped her register a complaint against the accused after they brutally raped her in October 2023. The FIR was registered on 22nd November, 2023.
The incident is said to have taken place in the Yeola region of Nashik district. The ordeal for the girl began in the year 2019 when the girl was studying for her First Year college degree. She was followed and harassed by the accused for over a year while on her way to the college or other curriculum classes. The primary accused, Wasim, used to work in a local autorepair shop which is across the victim’s home. He also developed a friendship with the brother of the victim to get close to her.
He once followed her and forced her to take a selfie with him while she was on her way to some class. The girl denied but the accused grabbed her phone and refused to give it back until she agreed to click a picture with him. The accused then used this picture to blackmail the girl. He threatened her that he would spread the picture in the village and to her family if she failed to be ‘friends’ with him. The girl refused but the accused forced her to talk to him and be ‘friends’ with him.
Wasim started following the girl daily on her way to her college and classes. The girl preferred to ignore Wasim, however, on 17th July 2020, he forcefully dragged her to a local hotel and brutally raped her. He further fed her with some unprescribed medication and dropped her at one of her friend’s homes.
After this incident, the girl got scared and the accused began sexually assaulting her frequently. He had threatened the girl to keep quiet and also had recorded some obscene videos while he raped her. Wasim used these videos to blackmail the girl to fulfill his sexual demands. “I have your private video recordings. I’ll leak them if you don’t obey me,” he used to say to the girl and torture her sexually.
The victim eventually stopped going to college and preferred to stay at home out of fear. After 7-8 months, she thought that it would be safe and easy to rejoin the college again. However, the accused Wasim was still looking for ways to harass and torture the girl. He and his friend, Arif (second accused) now together started following the girl to her college as she rejoined her studies.
The accused had shared the obscene videos of the girl with his friend Arif and the duo now started threatening and harassing the girl. They threatened her to obey them and said that they would spread private videos of the girl in the village. They took her to Jain Palace in Yeola region and brutally gang-raped her. As per the FIR, the accused also prepared forged documents of the woman and submitted her fake religious identity to check in at the hotel in Yeola.
The girl was threatened with the death of her family as well so she was scared and could not narrate the ordeal to anyone. “In 2022, I got pregnant after being raped by Wasim. I told him but he did not take that seriously. I had no option but to ask him to marry me. So I did. But he blatantly refused and asked me to abort the child,” the woman said in the FIR.
The victim was then forcefully taken to a maternity hospital by Wasim and his brother Raj Sayyed. The duo forced the girl to abort the child. They used the obscene videos of her to threaten her to do so. “The doctors said that I would be required to stay at the hospital for 7 days. Wasim and his brother then forced me to inform my parents that I would be attending a college seminar in Pune. The child was aborted against my will. I had asked Wasim to marry me but he refused. I wanted to keep the child but he threatened me to keep my mouth shut. The duo also took Rs 30000 from me to pay the hospital bill. When I said that I had no money, Wasim blackmailed me saying that he would make my videos viral,” the victim stated in the complaint.
In June 2022, the parents of the girl who were unaware of this matter, fixed her marriage to a man from the Niphad area of Nashik. The accused however got to know about the event and forced the girl to call off the marriage. He again used the obscene videos as a weapon.
“A year passed. I began attending my classes again. But the threat was not over yet. On 13th October this year, Wasim again followed me and dragged me to a local hotel. He brutally raped me. It was his birthday that day. I had no courage to face this all. So I went to stay with my cousin in Kopargaon region. I told him about Wasim, his friend, and his brother. He then helped me register an FIR and also told my parents about the incident,” the victim said in the complaint.
OpIndia tried to contact the Police while drafting this report but the calls remained unanswered. The report will be updated once the police updates on this case are obtained. The FIR against the accused has been filed under the relevant sections of the law. FIR Copy of the case is with OpIndia. Further investigations are underway.
