Nagpur: The mobile phones of two women NCP activists, Alka Kamble and Urvashi Giradkar, were seized by the Umred police last week for their alleged role behind posting the image and name of a gang rape survivor in a WhatsApp group.
The activists had accompanied former NCP minister Jayant Patil at a hospital to meet the gang rape survivor but ended up posting the details on the party’s WhatsApp group. The cellphones of the women activists were sent to the cyber laboratory, which is likely to contact the WhatsApp management for information on sharing and forwarding patterns in the registered crime.
The case was registered by Umred police for violation of section 228 A of Indian Penal Code (IPC), which forbids publishing details of survivors of any sexual abuse case with punishment that can extend up to two years of imprisonment and fine too.
Police said the CCTV footage of the hospital on the day of visit of Patil, now state president of the party, has been seized. The statement of the doctor concerned, who was with the NCP team which visited the gang rape survivor, too has been recorded.
“We have recorded the statements of NCP workers who were part of the Patil’s entourage to the hospital and other employees, including the security guards,” police said.
Shortly after the visit, Giradkar was the first to post the name of the gang rape survivor, which was reported in TOI. Within a couple of days, Kamble, NCP’s city unit women’s president, posted the picture of the bed-ridden survivor admitted at the hospital’s ICU. Sources from the police department said that offences were registered against Kamble earlier too.
