TRIBAL POLICEWOMAN HAILING FROM CHATTISGARH GANGRAPED BY…

TRIBAL POLICEWOMAN HAILING FROM CHATTISGARH GANGRAPED BY ARMED ROBBERS ON NH-75 ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF LATEHAR

A tribal policewoman in her 20s was gangraped by armed robbers on National Highway-75 on the outskirts of Latehar, 180 km from Ranchi, when she was accompanying her family members carry her younger sister’s body from Ranchi to Garhwa for burial on Thursday night. Police said investigation was on. No arrests had been made till Saturday.

The policewoman, her parents, her two daughters aged 3 and 5, her two sisters and their husbands who had come from Chhattisgarh and their infant daughters, were travelling together followed by a car carrying the body of her youngest sister who had been shot dead in Ranchi on August 20 when they were stopped and looted by men armed with axes.

After looting Rs. 10,000 from her, three men made the woman come out of the Bolero car and took her to an isolated spot nearby as three men held the rest of the family hostage inside the car. A constable in the district armed police, she had joined the police in April 2012 when the government had offered her a job on compassionate grounds after her husband was killed in an attack by CPI (Maoists) on MP Inder Singh Namdhari’s convoy in December 2011.

Since the district was carved in 2001, Latehar police’s male personnel have been accommodated in the district teachers’ training institution building and haphazardly-built one and two-storey houses in Dharampur nearby have been rented as houses by the district policewomen. All through Friday and Saturday residents of Dharampur watched as police officials visited the neighbourhood several times.

At the family’s rented single-room house, the policewoman’s father, a farmer in Garhwa, recounted the attack. “My wife and I got a call when we were in Garhwa that my daughter and her husband had been shot dead at their home, their 2-year old daughter had survived. We borrowed money and rented a Bolero and came to Latehar. My son-in-law’s body was taken by his relatives for burial to Singhbhum. We wanted to bring my daughter’s body to Garhwa because she had not visited home in so long,” recounted the quiet 50-year old.

He said that as the Bolero slowed at an incline near Jungledagga before entering Latehar town where a robbery had occurred in July, they saw that the road had been blocked with boulders. Men armed with axes ordered the family switch off the lights in the car and hand over their valuables.

“My sister was in the middle seat of the Bolero. She had malaria. She pleaded that we were bringing our sister’s body back. They threatened that if she resisted there would be even more deaths. We came back home and could not even think what to do next,” said her sister.

“Five people have been detained but the investigation is not complete yet,” said Latehar’s Superintendent of Police Michael S. Raj.

Source:Agencies