Batala (Punjab), Apr 22 (PTI) Thirteen people, including a ‘pastor’, have been booked in a kidnapping and rape case on the complaint of a 22-year-old woman, police said on Tuesday.
An FIR was registered under sections 70 (gang rape), 127 (4) (wrongful confinement) and 61 (2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita on the basis of the complaint.
The accused include ‘pastor’ Manjit Singh, besides Sawar Masih, Happy, Kajal, Rajinder. Among the 13 accused, two are unidentified, the police said.
“A case has been registered against 13 people, including a ‘pastor’ and two unidentified persons. Investigations are underway,” Dera Baba Nanak SHO Satpal Singh said.
The woman worked at a rice mill in a village near the Fatehgarh Churian Road and one Sawar Masih, a resident of her village, had taken the ID of her social media account from someone. Masih soon started ‘following’ her on social media, he said.
She alleged that in January, Masih and one of his relatives came to the mill and called her outside. They threatened her with a sharp weapon and took her away on a scooter.
The complainant said she was taken to an unknown location where she was raped, beaten up and locked inside a house for three months.
She alleged that ‘pastor’ Manjit Singh, who came there later, forced her to drink a liquid and told her that she had been converted to Christianity. She was also made to sign some document stating that she was in a live-in relationship with one of the accused.
She managed to escape last week after they forgot to lock the room where she had been confined.
The development comes on the heels of a Mohali court sentencing self-styled Christian preacher Bajinder Singh to life in prison in a 2018 rape case on April 1.
Earlier this month, self-styled pastor Jashan Gill, who had been on the run for two years after being accused of raping a 22-year-old woman, surrendered before a court in Gurdaspur district. PTI SUN SZM SZM
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