20, Jan 2016

Jan 20 2016 : The Times of India (Mumbai)
Meerut:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
One of UP’s most restive districts is on the boil again after a rape clip, of a woman getting violated during the riots of 2013 in Muzaffarnagar, went public earlier last week. BJP leaders, some of them accused in the riots, have jumped into the fray , threatening to hold mahapanchayats if the tormentors of the woman are not slapped with cases under the Nation Security Act (NSA).

The police, meanwhile, have a different version. They told TOI on Tuesday that it was not “rape“ and the “act“ was consensual. The only criminality , cops said, was the distribution of the video, coming as it did just as the state was gearing up for assembly polls next year.

The woman on Saturday had given a chilling statement in court, narrating how she was gangraped and filmed by six men in 2013, and for three years after that repeatedly blackmailed into submission.

According to her, she kept suffering in silence all through her ordeal, which did not end even after she got married though she begged her alleged rapists to leave her alone. She told the court that her abuse continued, culminating in the rape video being released on WhatsApp by them, which immediately got widely shared.Having “lost my marriage and honour“, she finally filed an FIR against two accused in the Khatauli police station last Thursday . Later, four more names were added after her appearance in court on Saturday .