New Delhi: A now-suspended deputy director in the Delhi government’s Department of Women and Child Development (WCD) and his homemaker wife, who are accused in a case of sexual assault of a minor, were sent to 14 days’ judicial custody Wednesday.
According to the FIR registered in the case on 13 August, based on of the statement of the 17-year-old minor, the 51-year-old suspended WCD officer had not only sexually assaulted her when she was living at his Delhi house under his guardianship, but also molested her in the church attended by both families. The minor had also accused his wife of feeding her abortion pills following the assault at their house.
ThePrint has a copy of the FIR.
On Tuesday, defense counsel Umashankar Gautam said that the accused had undergone vasectomy in 2005. A medical report on whether the vasectomy remained intact is awaited and the next hearing is scheduled to be held on 6 September.
“After my father’s death on 1 October, 2020, my mother and I got depressed. I went to my uncle’s house [the minor referred to the accused as mama or maternal uncle] to divert my mind and started attending online classes from there [the minor was enrolled in an open school, according to police sources]. From November 2002 to January 2021, uncle raped me. He would touch my private parts,” states the FIR.
The FIR goes on to detail that the minor was left with swelling in her private parts after the first instance of sexual assault and that the accused’s wife, who is also an accused in the case, blamed the minor when she told him about it.
“She [the wife] was strict and would hit me when I would score less marks. The last time he sexually assaulted me was in January 2021 after which I missed my periods [indicating that she may have been pregnant]. Aunty said that they will get [an] abortion done since it’s the first month and asked her son to get a test kit,” states the FIR.
The FIR adds: “After which they gave me abortion pills and I started bleeding. I told my mother on 16 January [2021, on the minor’s birthday when she visited] to take me from there [though she purportedly did not tell her mother about the alleged assault].”
“I had told my uncle and aunt’s two children about the incidents but they didn’t believe me. In February I came back to our house in Usmanpur [Delhi] with my mother. [Her mother, however, later moved to Burari, where the accused lived, according to police sources.] Whenever I would go to church [the two families purportedly attended the same church], my uncle would molest me. I stopped visiting the church 1 July, 2023. I didn’t tell my mother anything thinking she wouldn’t believe,” the FIR further states.
According to the FIR, from 7 August onwards the minor started suffering anxiety attacks and on 11 August she told the doctor about what had happened.
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‘Pregnancy not mentioned statement recorded under CrPC’
Delhi Police sources told ThePrint that in her statement recorded in front of a magistrate Monday, under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the minor didn’t mention the pregnancy.
However, a senior police officer speaking on condition told ThePrint that “the investigation is on. The victim can record a supplementary statement as the probe progresses in front of the magistrate”.
The accused former WCD officer had earlier also served as the superintendent of the Juvenile Justice Board and as officer on special duty (OSD) to the minister for women and child development.
Sources in Delhi Police had earlier told ThePrint that the two families had “known each other for around 20 years and belong to Jharkhand”.
The accused and his wife have two children.
“The victim’s [minor’s] father and the accused, both Delhi government employees, were friends. After her father’s death, her mother had dropped her off at the house of the accused, whom the girl addressed as ‘mama’. The girl’s mother has said that she did so because the child was all alone in the house and would get some company with the kids,” one of the sources had said.
The FIR was lodged in Delhi’s Burari police station was registered under relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and sections 376 2f (being a guardian, commits rape on such woman), 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 323 (causing hurt), 313 (causing miscarriage without woman’s consent), and 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
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