New Delhi: On the morning of 4 April, the father of a 19-year-old girl, a resident of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, approached a police station complaining that his daughter had gone missing. After lodging a missing person report, the police found her at the house of her friend.
It seemed like a routine case until two days later, when the girl’s mother approached the police once again, alleging that her daughter had been sexually assaulted by as many as 23 men between 29 March and 3 April.
In the complaint to the Varanasi Police, the girl’s mother alleged that her daughter was raped on multiple occasions by men in groups, or individually at different locations in the city, intoxicating her prior to the assault. The first of these assaults, she said, had taken place on 29 March, when the girl was returning home from her friend’s place.
“So far, 12 people have been arrested in the case,” Varanasi Police Commissioner Mohit Agarwal told ThePrint Friday. This includes 10 individuals named in the FIR by the family. While nine of the suspects were arrested earlier (last week), three others were nabbed Thursday, he added.
Senior police officials privy to the investigation told ThePrint that all alleged episodes of sexual assault seemed “separate” and “independent” of each other, with accused persons in one not linked to others.
The alleged gangrape case created ripples Friday as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who represents the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, expressed concern and took stock of developments in the case while at the city airport.
According to the Uttar Pradesh government, the PM sought details of the case from the police commissioner, divisional commissioner Kaushal Raj Sharma and district magistrate S. Rajalingam immediately after landing in the city.
“During his visit to Varanasi Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed deep concern over the recent gangrape incident involving a 19-year-old girl and took a strong stance on the matter. Upon arriving at Varanasi airport, the prime minister immediately sought a detailed briefing from the Police Commissioner, Divisional Commissioner and District Magistrate,” a government spokesperson said. “PM Modi directed officials to identify all those involved in the heinous crime and ensure the strictest possible action against them. He also emphasised the need for robust and effective measures to prevent such incidents in the future.”
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‘Multiple incidents of rape’
According to the city police, the girl’s family first approached Lalpur police station on 4 April, complaining that their daughter had not returned home since 29 March.
The police launched a search, and found from the family that the girl had visited a friend’s house and retrieved her from there.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Chandra Kant Meena, who gave the details of the case, said no complaint of rape or sexual assaults was made by the family then.
Two days later, in the evening on 6 April, the girl’s mother approached the police station, alleging multiple incidents of rape perpetrated on her daughter.
According to the complaint given to the police that formed the basis of an FIR lodged in the matter on 7 April, the mother alleged that one Raj Vishwakarma took her daughter to a cafe in the Lanka area of the city while she was returning home and did “bad deeds” against her. ThePrint has seen the FIR.
According to the FIR, the following day, one Sameer and his friend took the girl to the highway and misbehaved with her, before dropping her at another location.
On 31 March, it further says, one Ayush and his five friends, named Sohail, Danish, Anmol, Sajid and Zaheer, met the girl and took her to Anmol’s Continental Cafe in the city.
“All of them took my daughter to Anmol’s Continental Cafe in Maldahiya Sigra. There, they all forced my daughter to drink intoxicants in large quantities, after which my daughter started feeling dizzy. Then they all took my daughter to a room located in the cafe itself where they all took turns doing wrong things to my daughter. My daughter kept screaming but no one heard. They also threatened my daughter not to tell anyone about the incident,” the FIR states.
Over the next two days, the mother alleges, her daughter was raped by two groups of men in Varanasi before one Raj Khan intoxicated her with drug-laced chowmein. She adds that the girl was finally dropped at Assi Ghat on 3 April, from where she went to her friend’s house and fell asleep.
She left for her home in the evening, but was once again held captive, the mother claimed, adding that a group of men, including Danish, Shoaib, Sohail and others, further intoxicated her daughter and raped her. She finally returned to her friend’s place again on 4 April.
Based on the FIR, the police have booked 12 men named by the family as well as 11 unknown suspects under Sections 70 (1) (gangrape), 74 (using criminal force against woman), 123 (causing hurt by means of poison or other harmful substances), 126 (2) (wrongful restraint), 127 (2) (wrongful confinement) and 351 (2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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