Pune: Four Indian Army personnel, who are posted at Khadki Military hospital in Pune, were booked for molesting and raping a speech-impaired woman. As per reports, the crime took place in the hospital premises.
The victim had filed a complaint in Indore with the help of an NGO. A report states that the letter was also sent to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Army Chief Bipin Singh Rawat.
As per Army sources, the matter dates back to 2015. It escalated in May this year after an NGO approached the Army. Court of inquiry was ordered in May and is believed to be in progress.
Pune ACP Kalyanrao Vidhate, while speaking to media, informed that the incident took place between January to June 2015. “Victim and accused used to work in night shifts at the same organisation. She can’t speak, so accused took advantage of her condition and committed sexual assault. She told her colleague and he also committed sexual assault. Two other men did the same thing,” he informed.
The Khadki police station on Tuesday registered an FIR against all four Army personnel, as per ANI. While FIR was registered against three of them under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), one was booked under Section 354 of IPC.
In a similar incident last month, an Army Major was booked for allegedly raping his domestic help in southwest Delhi. In her complaint, the woman also accused the Army Major and his relative of killing her husband.
The woman, in the complaint, stated that she was raped by the Major on July 12. The same day her husband allegedly killed himself.
In another incident, an Army man was arrested on September 25 in connection with the gangrape of a 19-year-old woman from Rewari district in Haryana. Identified as Navin alias Nikku, the Army personnel was nabbed by the SIT in Odisha.
The woman was abducted from a bus stop in Kanina town in Mahendragarh district, neighbouring Rewari, on September 12 while she was on the way to a coaching class. She was allegedly drugged and gang-raped at a room housing a tubewell for irrigation.