A 24-year-old Hindu woman has filed a police complaint against her husband and father-in-law for raping her after she was trapped with a false name in the marriage. A case has been registered against the accused at Debpur police station of Dhule district in Maharashtra.
The FIR
The FIR (number—342/2022) was registered at Debpur police station on 1 December 2022.
Here is what the victim in her complaint told the police:
The woman got married to a man named Gaurav from her religious community in 2016. They went on to have a child and named him Ashish (name changed).
Gaurav died in an accident in 2019. She decided to study again and work for the Maharashtra police. She joined a coaching institute named ‘Khandesh Academy’ in 2020.
In her coaching center, she met a man named Harshad Mali. They became friends and started chatting over the phone. One day, Harshad took her to the outskirts of the city where he tried raping her. She resisted but he did not stop. He not only raped her but video-recorded everything.
After the incident, she stopped talking to him. Angered over this, he started blackmailing her using the videos he had. He threatened her that he would share them on a public platform if she refused to talk to him. She was forced to talk to him.
One day, he confessed that he was deeply in love with the woman and wanted to live with her. The woman said yes as he still had her videos and pictures. She moved in with Harshad and brought her son along as well.
On 2 July 2021, she discovered that Harshad was not Hindu. Instead, his actual name was Arshad Malik. When she confronted him about the false name, he said that those little things did not matter in love. Later they shifted to Amalner and Ulhasnagar cities together.
While they were staying together, Arshad took the money she received from her in-laws and first husband. It was around Rs 2.5 lakh. Arshad also snatched a gold chain which her husband Gaurav had gifted her.
He also demanded other jewellery from her and, when she refused, he hit her and even gave her burn wounds by forcefully keeping her hands on the motorcycle silencer.
All of this happened when the woman was living in a rented apartment in Ulhasnagar. They lived there for four months and then he informed his parents about her and her son.
On finding out about the relationship, Arshad’s father Salim came home. He raped her and did so repeatedly. All of this happened with Arshad’s permission.
A few days later, both the father and the son raped her together.
Later they took her to their home in Dhule where she was converted to Islam. She was given a new name and was married to Arshad as per Islamic rituals.
Although the woman and Arshad were married, her father-in-law Salim raped her every other day.
Arshad and Salim raped her irrespective of the fact that she was pregnant again.
The family members of Arshad including his mother Tasleem and sister Arsheen now began pressuring the woman to perform ‘khatna’ (circumcision) on her son from her previous marriage. When she refused, they assaulted her despite her pregnancy. After this, she sent her son to his grandmother’s house in Dhule.
The woman delivered the child in August 2022, but was not provided with essential care. Even at such an early stage of giving birth to a child, her father-in-law and her husband raped her.
Following the Sharddha Walker murder case, her husband and his family threatened her that they would chop her into 70 pieces if she did not do things as per their instructions. They said, “Aftab had cut Shraddha into 35 pieces, we will cut you into 70.”
She managed to escape from Arshad’s house on 29 November. She reached the house of her mother-in-law (Gaurav’s mother). On meeting her, she shared her ordeal with her. Arshad and his family began giving death threats to the victim and her previous in-laws, the complaint concludes.
Find the woman’s statement recorded in the FIR below:
The woman and her in-laws reached out to the police seeking help on 1 December 2022. A case was filed against Arshad and his father Salim.
As per the FIR, they have been booked under IPC sections 376(2)(n) (rape), 377 (having carnal intercourse), 327 (hurting to extort property), 504 (intentionally insulting), 506 (criminal intimidation), 34 (act done by several people with common intention) and 323 (causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code.
Watch a video report of the case by Times Now Navbharat here.
Rashtrajyoti tried calling up the police but the calls went unanswered. The official Twitter handle of the Dhule Police has been inactive since 2020.
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