By Raju Vernekar
Nagpur, Oct 5:
While Hathras rape incident has stirred the country, yet another case of a rape and victimisation of a 22 year old Nepali girl at Chinhat in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh has come to the fore and the offence has been registered against two accused in Nagpur in Maharashtra.
The victim girl had come to New Delhi from Nepal some time in 2018. Initially she worked with an event management company in NOIDA (Uttar Pradesh) and then shifted to Surat (Gujarat) and began working as a receptionist in 2019.
In Surat she got acquainted with one Sufi Vishwakarma (29) (originally from Nepal). As their acquaintance grew, Sufi told her that his friend, Pravin Jaipal Yadav (25), who was almost like his brother was well settled in Dubai. He also arranged a video call with Pravin and made her to speak to him. Subsequently they remained in touch through telephonic conversation and one day Pravin proposed to marry her.
In January 2020 Sufi told her that Pravin had arrived and took her to Lucknow. After reaching Lucknow, she handed over Rs.1.50 lakh and two mobile phones to Sufi to keep them in safe custody. However soon a lock down was enforced and the girl who had no means of survival, began filling shortage of money. As such she demanded her money back from Sufi. However he refused and began harassing her.
In the meanwhile she some how got in touch Pravin and narrated her difficulties. Then he accommodated her in a nearby hotel. However soon Pravin and Sufi began visiting her in the hotel regularly and raped her several times. They also filmed the incident and began black mailing her. Pravin also reportedly told her that the Uttar Pradesh Police cannot do anything to him even if a complaint is registered.
When she orally communicated her plight to one of the policeman in the area, he advised her to compromise and keep her mouth shut. As such she called up her friend in Koradi, in Nagpur, who organised a private cab and brought her to Koradi. After reaching Koradi, she registered a complaint with Koradi police. In turn the Koradi Police registered a xero FIR against Pravin and Sufi and sent her to Lucknow under police escort and forwarded all relevant papers to the Chinhat Police station in Lucknow.
Speaking to this correspondent, Police Inspector Vajeer Shaikh said that the victim girl approached them on October 03 and the FIR was registered on October 04,2020. She was sent to Lucknow to enable police to carry out a panchanama and record the statements of the accused and witnesses. She will be brought back to Koradi once the formalities are completed.
The charges under sections 342,354,376,390,406,420 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code and under sections 67 and 67(A) of the Information Technology Act 2000 have been framed against the accused, Shaikh added.