The Uttar Pradesh Police on Tuesday said that it has ordered an inquiry into why no action was taken on the rape complaint it received last July from a woman in a village in Hapur district.
The woman, who is currently undergoing treatment for burns in a Delhi hospital, has accused her father of "selling" her off for Rs 10,000 and that over a dozen people of Shyampur Jatt village - where she was living with her second husband - had raped her.
"The woman has earlier made several complaints to police over custody of her three children, dowry and rape by some people," Hapur's Superintendent of Police Yesh Veer Singh told IANS.
Asked when her rape complaint was received by the police, he said it was made in July 2018. On whether it has been followed up, he said: "I have asked the officials to share the detailed action report taken on the complaint."
Singh also said that he has ordered a departmental inquiry into why then Babugarh police station SHO did not take any action.
Asked if anyone has been held so far, he said: "On the basis of her complaint, 16 people have been booked. Till today, no arrest has been made in the case but we will take action after verifying the complaint and allegations... those who are accused will be arrested after collection of evidence."
The SP said that the woman, who lived in Moradabad after running away from her second husband last year, has received 35 per cent burns.
Asked how the woman got burnt, Singh said that she was admitted to a government hospital in Moradabad on April 28. "But they (the woman and her live-in-partner) did not inform the police, which came to know about the incident from the hospital," he said.
Police in Moradabad need to find out if she set herself on fire or there was any other angle into it, he added.
The SP also said that a delegation of the villagers have given a memorandum that gives a "completely different picture" of the issue.
"People of Shyampur Jatt have given a memorandum to me... that says the allegations made against them are not true. They have said that no such incident (of rape) has occurred and demanded a thorough probe before action."
A senior police official related to the probe said that the woman was residing in Moradabad since 2018, and "whenever the police tried to reach her to verify the allegations, she was always unavailable".
Earlier in the day, the woman's father denied allegations that he sold her for Rs 10,000.
"I had spent over Rs 50,000 in her marriage in 2010, why would I sell her for Rs 10,000?
"She has made our life hell," he said, demanding that his daughter and her live-in partner should be put behind bars.
Asked about the allegations of rape made by his daughter against people of the village, he said: "Will 14 people rape her? If another day, she accuses the entire village of raping her, then will police put entire villagers behind the bar?
The father of the youth she lived with in Moradabad said: "We have tried to made him understand that it was not right to stay with a married woman like this. But when he didn't heed our request, we ended all contact with him for last one year."
His first husband told the police that he was married the woman on June 28, 2010 but got divorced after seven months. "Then in the affidavit for her second marriage, they declared me dead in a road accident," he said.
The woman's second husband told the police that she ran off one and half year ago.
"She left two of the children at home, and the third at her sister's place in Moradabad," he said, adding that his brother-in-law then brought the child back to him.
The case came to light after Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal sent a letter to the Uttar Pradesh Police, asking why it had not acted on the woman's complaint.
(Anand Singh can be contacted at Anand.s@ians.in)
--IANS
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