A woman in West Bengal was raped by a youth from the neighbourhood on Tuesday, and when she along with her husband went to police to register a case, the police refused to do so and sent them back, as Muharram was going on. Later the family had to approach the Superintendent of Police to get the complaint registered.
According to reports, the woman, wife of a priest in a local temple, went for a bath in a pond near her resident at Khejuri in West Bengal’s Midnapore. At that time a youth named Sudipto from the same locality whistled at her, and made obscene suggestions. She protested to that, and went home after the bath. Her husband was not home at that time. When the woman was changing clothes, the man jumped on her. He threatened her by putting a knife on her neck and private parts, stuffed a handkerchief in her mouth, and tied her using her own saree. After that, he proceeded to rape her. Before leaving the house after committing the crime, he threatened that he will kill her by giving electric shock if she revealed the same to anyone.
After sometime when her husband came back, she narrated the incident to him. At first, they wanted to commit suicide in shame, but a woman from the neighbourhood overheard them, and she called other villagers. On the suggestion of villagers, the couple went to the Khejuri police station to lodge a complaint, but the police refused to register the same as it was Muharram. The man and woman repeatedly requested police to take the case, but they refused and chased them away from the police station.
This forced the couple to contact a lawyer, and per the advice of the lawyer, they approached the Superintendent of Police with the complaint. Only after that, the case was registered and a probe was started by police. The accused Sudipto is absconding at this moment and the police are looking for him.
OC of Khejuri Police station Gopal Das has refused the allegation, saying nobody came to lodge any complaint. But the family and their lawyer insist that police had refused to take the case due to Muharram, that’s why they went to the SP office.
