Lucknow: “It’s love.” That’s what a police inspector arrested on charges of raping the mother of an alleged rape survivor at a government accommodation in Kannauj, allegedly told her.
The incident occurred on Sunday, according to the FIR — accessed by ThePrint — registered Monday. The 45-year-old woman said in her complaint that she had gone to the police accommodation in connection with a gangrape and criminal intimidation case lodged on her daughter’s complaint. The family has allegedly claimed that two relatives “enticed” their daughter to elope with them.
The accused inspector, Anoop Kumar Maurya, who was arrested Monday, was in charge of the Haji Sharif Police Station and was investigating the woman’s daughter’s case, police sources said.
He was booked for rape under section 376 (2) (a) (ii) (commission of rape by a police officer) of the Indian Penal Code.
Kannauj Additional Superintendent of Police Arvind Kumar told ThePrint that the cop was produced before a local court Monday and has been sent to judicial custody.
Meanwhile, police sources said that Maurya has been suspended with immediate effect.
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The incident
The FIR quotes the woman as saying: “I had visited the [Kannauj] SP office on 26 and 27 August 26 with an application requesting arrest of the accused in the case lodged on behalf of my daughter under IPC sections 376D (gang rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation).”
She further claimed that Maurya told her to come to meet him on Sunday at 11 am.
“He asked me to reach the petrol pump intersection near the police lines morh (turn) and give him a call,” the FIR quotes her as saying.
Maurya, according to the woman, came to the spot on a bike and dressed in plain clothes. He then allegedly asked her to follow him to his government quarters.
Once she got to his accommodation, “he shut the door from inside, pushed me against the cot, removed his clothes and raped me”, the FIR says.
When she resisted, Maurya, the woman alleged, told her: “It’s love”.
“As I started to fight him inside the room, an elderly man who was washing utensils outside the accommodation heard me crying and saw me leave,” the woman further said in her statement, according to the FIR.
She filed a complaint against Maurya at Sadar Kotwali Police Station the same evening.
A senior police told ThePrint that the woman was sent to the women’s help desk, where she was questioned by a female sub-inspector and other female officers. “The inspector in charge of Sadar Police Station, Alok Dubey, and crime branch inspector Jitendra Pal conducted a preliminary inquiry after an FIR was lodged.”
Kannauj additional SP Kumar said that the woman and her family had approached a local court in March demanding an FIR against two relatives who they had accused of allegedly enticing their daughter.
“The woman had submitted a complaint in connection with the case at a local court. An FIR was subsequently lodged at the Kotwali police station on the court’s order,” Kumar said.
“The girl was found but the family had been demanding the arrest of the two suspects in the case,” Kumar further said, adding that it was in connection to this that the woman allegedly met Maurya, who sources say was promoted to the rank of inspector on 30 July.
While media reports have claimed that the woman’s daughter was a minor, Kumar said that although her age was not yet confirmed, “she is an adult”.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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