The complainant said despite complaints submitted through multiple official channels, the sections for rape and forceful conversion were not added to the FIR. A Muslim man in Deoria district has accused the police of not invoking rape charges and the anti-conversion law against a Hindu youth from his neighbourhood who allegedly sexually assaulted his teenage daughter and forcefully changed her religion last year.
The accused has not been arrested yet by the police, according to whom the 16-year-old girl told the magistrate that she had married the 26-year-old of her own accord.
On December 15, the girl’s father filed a complaint that read, “On October 30, a woman neighbour made my daughter, aged 16, elope. I found out from my neighbours that my daughter was married off forcefully at a temple to a boy from the neighbourhood. The accused is also threatening to kill me.”
The police lodged an FIR under IPC sections 363 (kidnapping) and 506 (criminal intimidation). The complainant said despite complaints submitted through multiple official channels, the sections for rape and forceful conversion were not added to the FIR.
The father told The Indian Express on Wednesday that the accused took his daughter to Delhi after their marriage.
“He then took her to Hamirpur where he locked up my daughter in a room and assaulted and raped her…On March 3, he left my girl at the gate of the police station in Deoria district and fled. On March 16, when I got custody of my daughter on orders from the court, then she told me what had happened to her. The accused has still not been arrested and is threatening me and my family.”
He said his daughter was staying with a relative since the accused was still threatening the family.
The station house officer (SHO) of the station concerned told The Indian Express, “Two persons have been named in FIR. The matter is under investigation and arrest is pending. The girl was recovered on March 4. Once everything in the probe is done, we will decide what sections are to be added. For now, the FIR is for kidnapping and intimidation.”
Deoria SP Shripati Mishra refused to comment on the investigation in detail, but added, “It does not matter what the family is alleging…No investigating agency can share the details of a probe. If the family keeps changing the complaint, then the girl’s statement is what matters. She has stated in front of the magistrate… that she got married to him [the accused] as per her wishes.”
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