Ujjain: The Koyala Phatak Chauraha in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain is a bustling intersection with heavy vehicular movement. Along one of the four lanes stands a composite liquor shop, one selling country liquor and the other foreign liquor, with men of various ages standing and drinking on the footpath outside.
About 70 metres from the liquor store, on the footpath on Agar Road, a 45-year-old tribal woman was allegedly raped by a 27-year-old vegetable seller in public.
The incident occurred on 4 September, when the city was under heavy police deployment to manage VIP movement after the death of Chief Minister Mohan Yadav’s father, Poonamchand Yadav. The area was cordoned off because of the CM’s movement at around 10 am, a few hours before the alleged rape.
A purported video of the incident that was shared widely on social media. Passersby informed the police, who arrived at the spot and took a number of people, including the woman, to the police station.
The accused, identified as Lokesh Lohariya, a resident of Rajiv Nagar in Ujjain, was arrested within 30 minutes of the incident, police said.
“In her statement to the police, the woman said the accused Lokesh indulged in the act after promising marriage, which is why we have registered a case of rape,” Ujjain Superintendent of Police (SP) Pradeep Sharma told ThePrint.
“The woman alleged that the accused told her ‘mein tujhe janmo janam tak saath rakhunga’ (I will stay with you for many lives),” he added.
An FIR was registered based on her statement.
Lokesh was booked under sections 64 (rape) and 353 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
They were both presented in court where the woman confirmed that they had entered into the sexual relationship after the accused promised marriage. Lokesh is currently in judicial custody.
Saleem, an auto driver, was one among the people who took videos of the incident. He was arrested after the 13-second video he shot went viral, and was booked under sections 72, 77, 294 and 67 of IT Act.
SP Pradeep Sharma said, “There were others who shot videos as well, but it was Saleem’s video that went viral.”
Woman sent back to village
According to the police, the woman hails from Jhabua and belongs to the tribal community. She had been living on the streets of Ujjain for the past two decades.
She also has an 18-year old son who lives in a shanty near Ujjain’s Koyala Phatak Chauraha. “But the son claimed that the woman would not come home for weeks. After the case was registered, the woman and her son were sent back to their village in Jhabua,” said a senior police officer from Ujjain, on condition of anonymity.
Even though some local residents and eyewitnesses at the spot had seen her before, no one knew who the woman was.
An eyewitness, who did not wish to be identified, told ThePrint, “People raised alarm and some started beating up a man and a policeman who was nearby rushed and caught two to three people, not knowing what had happened exactly.”
Another eyewitness said the police reached the spot almost instantly after people raised an alarm, stopped an auto-rickshaw nearby, and took the woman away.
“Usually when an incident happens, it takes very long for police to arrive, but they came almost instantly as there was heavy police deployment with the BJP movement,” said the eyewitness.
Sunil Jaiswal who works at the liquor store only learnt about the incident from the newspapers the next day.
“I would often spot the woman walking about the footpath picking up bottles and garbage, but we did not know something had happened until the next day when it came in the paper,” said Jaiswal, while speaking to The Print.
Shehzad Ansari, who owns a repair shop across the street, said the woman had been roaming the same street for about 20 years now. “I am 40 and at least for the past 20 years I have been seeing this woman loitering on these streets… About three weeks ago, she was sitting with a man drinking just in front of my shop and I asked her to leave.”
Deepak Bhawsar, the manager at the HP Petrol Pump, which was right next to the incident spot, said, “We saw that there was heavy crowd and chaos on the footpath. A few minutes later, we saw the police walking away from the spot with a man and that is when we realised that something had happened.”
Accused often returned home inebriated
Locals of Rajiv Nagar refer to the accused, Lokesh, as Lalbadshah (king of red) because of his habit of drinking a strong red-coloured country liquor. He often came home inebriated.
“I have often told him (Lokesh) to not hang out with his friends because such people will do you no good. But he would never listen. It is they who called him Lalbadshah,” said Lokesh’s mother Sushila Lohariya, sitting in her small one-room house in Rajiv Nagar.
She said she cannot understand why her 27-year-old son would do this. After failing Class 10, Lokesh began working with a vegetable vendor, later taking to selling vegetables himself on a handcart.
“He told me that, ‘Instead of working for others, I will do my own business’. He used to wake up early to go to mandi (market) and then sell vegetables in the mornings and evenings,” added Sushila.
On 4 September, the day of the incident, Lokesh returned home after selling vegetables in the morning but left again after some friends called on him.
“I asked him to sleep for a bit, but he said he will be back in five minutes and then later, he called and told me that he had been beaten up and was at the police station,” said Sushila.
But there is nothing that can be done now, she feels. “If he has done something wrong, he will be punished. I saw him from afar in the police station. He would often come home drunk and I would ask him to stop drinking, but he would not listen,” she added.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)