In a shocking incident, a 23-year-old woman from Rajkot lodged a complaint of gang rape against four culprits, alleging that she was gang-raped by them multiple times at various places in the city and Udaipur. The woman suffered a terrible ordeal between September 11 and October 23 this year.
She also went on to allege that she lost her job due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. She further added that she came across the accused as she was promised a lucrative job.
In a written complaint which she filed at the women’s police station (west), the victim accused builder Pragnesh Patel, Jitendragiri Goswami, Maldev Bharwad and Jaymin Patel of raping her. She also alleged that Pragnesh’ wife by the name of Neelam seized her passport and threatened her.
The woman said Bharwad phoned her two months ago after he got her movile number through a common friend and then promised to get her a well-paid corporate job. Bharwad had then introduced her to Pragnesh and Goswami, who promised her rich job involving event management work for their organization.
On such work, they took the woman to a hotel in Udaipur on September 11. She alleged that both Pragnesh and Goswami, who had also put up in a five star hotel in Udaipur had allegedly gave her a cold drink mixed with sedatives. She drank and fell unconscious.
“The next morning, I found myself and the accused naked. I also felt pain in my lower abdomen. When I confronted the accused, they apologised and promised it would never happen again,” the woman stated.
The accused allegedly took private pictures and videos of her in the Udaipur hotel and then used them to blackmail her and expoit her.
She also alleged that Pragnesh’ other assistants namely Bharwad and Jaymin Patel also allegedly raped her at different hotels and flats in Ahmedabad. She also alleged that Pragnesh once took her to a resort in Mandvi, where he and his assistants raped her after using the drug ‘MD’.
She further added that she was raped by Pragnesh and Bharwad in a moving SUV when they were going from Kutch to Ahmedabad. She said added that she escaped to a friend’s place in Adipur when the accused were refilling the fuel tank in car.
She was also threatened by Neelam, who seized her passport. The crime branch has initiated a probe in this matter.
Rape is the fourth most common crime in India:
The level of rape cases in the country is rising at an alarming rate. It is learnt that most of the rape cases were committed by someone known to the victim.
Not a long ago, the entire nation was shocked by the heinous rape and murder of the veterinary doctor in Hyderabad and after which, the 6-year-old girl was raped and strangled to death by her school belt in Rajasthan and then another shocking atrocity happened when a 9-year-old girl was raped and strangled to death.
Then a Hyderabad-like rape and murder incident took place at Kumarganj, South Dinajpur in West Bengal. Then again a 46-year-old Thailand woman was raped in Kerala by two men. It has been learnt that the Thai national visited India in order to meet her child in Kerala but she was raped. In Tamil Nadu, a 14-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her own father for over three months.
Recently, on 14 September 2020, a Dalit woman was gang-raped in Hathras district allegedly by four upper-caste men. After battling for her life for over two weeks, a 19-year-old woman passed away in a Delhi hospital.