A police sub-inspector was suspended and later arrested for allegedly raping the mother of a 17-year-old rape victim at his official residential quarters in Sadar area of Kannauj district. As per a complaint by the woman, incharge of Haji Sharif Chowki Anoop Maurya, who was handling her daughter’s rape case, had asked her to meet him at a petrol pump near his official residential quarter on August 28.
“He asked me to follow him to his quarter where he raped me,” she alleged. However, the accused claimed that he had called the woman to his room to sign some documents.
“Prima facie, the charges have been found to be true. The inspector has been suspended and arrested. He was produced before a court and sent to jail,” Kannauj SP Kunwar Anupam Singh said. CO (Sadar) Shiv Pratap Singh conducted a preliminary probe in which Maurya was found guilty.
The woman had lodged a case against a man, alleging that kidnapped her minor daughter and raper her. The girl somehow managed to escape and returned home. She then narrated her ordeal to her mother.
Meanwhile, police registered a case of rape over a year after the crime was committed. The victim’s father approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) which directed the Aligarh police to register the FIR. The 13-year-old girl was raped on June 12, 2021 after being locked inside a shop. The accused threatened to kill the girl and her family if they informed police. However, the girl’s father informed the police. He alleged that the police simply issued a ‘challan’ to the accused for breach of peace.
The victim’s father, who works as a labourer, later approached the NHRC which directed the police to register a case against the accused, Lallu, under sections 354A (sexual harassment), 342 (wrongfull confinement) & 506 (criminal intimidation), and relevant sections of POCSO Act. Another FIR was registered against all the cops present in the police station on June 12, 2021 when the victim’s father had approached them but he was shooed away.
All the accused policemen were booked under Section 166A (public servant disobeying direction under law). The report stated that the complaint made by the victim’s father was recorded at the women’s helpdesk register and a computerised complaint slip was also generated, but a case for the cognisable offense was not registered.
In a similar case in Lalitpur, police registered a case against a constable and an inspector for abetment to suicide two years after the body of a man was found hanging from a tree in a village. The crime branch of UP Police registered an FIR against inspector Nigvendra Pratap and head constable Narendra Singh for abetment to suicide, according to the SHO, Lalitpur Kotwali.
The widow of the deceased approached the NHRC, alleging that her husband was killed by local policemen who had taken him away from his house in Bastgua village on April 27, 2020. On April 29, his body was found hanging from a tree in Durganpura village.
She alleged that her husband was thrashed and threatened by Nigvendra Pratap and Narendra Singh on April 25, 2020.
The UP government directed the CB-CID to conduct an inquiry into the matter and both the policemen were found guilty. The Sadar Kotwali police registered a case under Section 306.
