New Delhi: On the intervening night of 14 and 15 September, a 32-year-old woman and her fiancé went to a police station in Bhubaneswar to report a road rage incident. That night, however, the woman was allegedly beaten, kicked, and sexually assaulted by a group of police officers. The attack left her with broken teeth and several severe injuries. She is now undergoing treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Bhubaneswar, for a dislocated jaw, a hip injury, and other trauma.
Speaking to ThePrint from her hospital bed, the woman broke down. “I don’t know why they beat me up like this,” she said. “I think they didn’t like me talking back to them, asking them to take down our complaint, to produce an arrest warrant when they arrested my fiancé,” she said.
The woman is a practicing lawyer and her fiancé an Army captain.
The police lodged an FIR against her for allegedly biting one of the police personnel at the station. She was denied bail by a lower court in what the defence has called a “two-line cryptic order”. She was finally granted bail Wednesday by the Odisha High Court, noting that reasons for granting or rejecting of bails should be mentioned in court orders.
Her fiancé was released from custody on 15 September itself after the Army authorities intervened at a high level.
Sources in Odisha Police said that an FIR has also been lodged against the police personnel accused of assaulting the woman and detaining her fiancé on the basis of the army officer’s complaint. The matter is being investigated by the crime branch. Another FIR has also been registered on the road rage incident which is being probed by the local police.
“The police personnel against whom allegations have been levelled are being questioned. Evidence is being collected. There was no CCTV footage in the police station as it is a new building and the CCTV from the old location is yet to be brought to the new police station,” the source said.
Sources in Odisha Police confirmed that five officers, including one Inspector in Charge (IIC) Dinakrushna Mishra, have been suspended after the allegations of custodial torture surfaced. Other personnel who have been suspended include Sub-inspector Baisalini Panda, Assistant Sub-inspectors Salilamayee Sahoo and Sagarika Rath, and Constable Balaram Handa.
Earlier, on 17 September, DCP Bhubaneswar Prateek Singh had said to the media that the couple had been aggrieved by something and spoke to the woman officer in Bharatpur Police Station aggressively.
“She [the officer] asked them to calm down and narrate what had happened. The woman got more aggrieved and shouted at the officer, and told her that she will only speak to the seniors… This officer is called a senior woman officer. She misbehaved with her and the other officers present there. It appeared as if she wasn’t in her proper state of mind and was intoxicated. She started creating a ruckus and threatened the officers at the gate as well. After all of this, when the woman officer tried to restrain her, she started hitting them. She slapped one woman officer and bit another officer. She misbehaved with the IIC officer, too, and her fiance was also in the same state of mind. He, too, was fighting with the officers. A case was registered in the Bharatpur police station,” the DCP said.
ThePrint reached DCP Singh via calls and WhatsApp messages. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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What happened that night
At 1 am on 15 September, the woman was heading home with her fiancé in Bhubaneswar after closing the restaurant she owns. Exhausted from the day, they were just 10 minutes away from home when 12 men in three vehicles blocked their car. A heated argument and scuffle followed, but the couple managed to escape. Having noted one of the vehicle’s numbers, her fiancé, 29, suggested they report the incident at the Bharatpur police station, just 400 metres from her home.
And things steadily got worse.
“It was around 1.30 am when we reached the police station. There was only one officer there, a lady on night duty. She told me she was in-charge. I started narrating my ordeal to her but she wasn’t really listening, nor was she telling me what to do. After a point I got agitated and asked her why she was taking my complaint so casually. She replied saying that the patrol vehicle is on its way and asked me to tell the senior officers about the incident.”
When the patrol vehicle arrived, her fiancé was handed a pen and paper to write the complaint, the woman said. However, two male officers suddenly began stripping him of his belongings and dragged him into a cell, she added.
“I started screaming for help,” she said. “I told them that they can’t do this, that he is an Army officer and I’m a lawyer and all of this is illegal,” she said, adding that at this, two women officers, who had come in the patrol vehicle, hit her on the head and pulled her hair.
“Three female personnel pinned me down while pulling my hair. I was struggling to escape. And then one of them came forward and held my neck in a bid to choke me. To escape her grip on my neck, I bit her hand. She yelled and two more male officers came in and they stood on my hands and feet. They removed my top and tied my hands. One female officer tied my feet with her scarf and they dragged me into a room and threw me on the floor. I was screaming throughout,” she said.
It was around 6 am in the morning when, she said, three women officers and the inspector in-charge entered the room.
“The IIC asked me in Odia, ‘why are you being like this?’ Then he kicked my face and the other male personnel who had come in started punching my face. They stomped on my face and rubbed my face on the ground. My teeth fell out. I started bleeding profusely. I pleaded with them to stop but they only laughed and pulled my tooth out and dislocated my jaw.”
She further alleged that she was disrobed after this and that the IIC flashed her with his genitals.
“I kept crying. Then they left, and the next thing I remember is my fiancé opening the door and coming to get me. We were again asked to sit at the reception. The ACP had then come to the station and he, too, reprimanded me when I tried to tell him what had transpired. He asked us to sit outside. At around 9 am, I complained of nausea and we were taken to some hospital. They then arrested me. It was only on 17 September afternoon that I was brought to AIIMS Bhubaneswar,” the 32-year-old said.
‘Learned magistrate failed to apply his/her judicial mind’
While granting her bail Wednesday, the Odisha High Court noted that the arresting officer did not follow the procedures laid down in section 35 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). The section deals with procedures and circumstances of arrest. Moreover, the court also directed the state government to incur all medical expenses of the petitioner (the woman).
The HC also commented on the rejection of bail to the woman by the local court on 16 September, saying that the “learned magistrate has failed to apply his/her judicial mind and has acted in a mechanical manner”.
“The Hon’ble Supreme Court has categorically stated that reasons either for grant or rejection of bail has to be specifically mentioned in the order. In absence of any reason, the order would become a void order. Learned District & Sessions Judge, Khurda at Bhubaneswar is requested to communicate the same to all the magistrates not to follow such type of printed format order while considering the bail application of the accused persons (sic),” the High Court order noted.
The order mentions that some of the personnel in question have been transferred while others have been suspended.
SI Panda was the one who lodged the FIR against the woman, stating that between 3 and 3.30 am, a call came from the ASI at Bharatpur police station, reporting that a couple was causing a disturbance. According to the FIR, the 32-year-old woman allegedly bit ASI Rath and damaged property, including a laptop.
ThePrint reached Director General of Police (DGP) Yogesh Bahadur Khurania via calls and messages. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
Meanwhile, her fiancé…
According to the woman’s father, a retired Army officer (Brigadier rank), her daughter’s fiancé was only released from custody on 15 September around 11 pm after the Army’s intervention, while the woman remained in custody. On 18 September, the fiancé wrote to the Additional Director General of Police, detailing the incident and requesting that an FIR be filed and the officers involved be punished.
“While I was writing the complaint, four police officers held me and dragged to one of the cells where they removed my pants and took all my belongings, including my wallet and mobile phone, Army identity card and keys of my car. I was locked inside the cell illegally at 3 am. Meanwhile my fiance was physically assaulted by two women officers in the lobby,” the complaint to the ADG, a copy of which ThePrint has accessed, says.
In his letter, the Army captain described being subjected to illegal custody, harassment, and mental torture. He also recounted how his fiancé was stripped and sexually assaulted by the police personnel.
“I could hear her screaming for 30 minutes,” the letter reads.
This is an updated version of the report
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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