The Mumbai police on Monday informed the Bombay High Court that they can’t proceed with the case of rape and criminal intimidation against Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, as the woman who had filed the case has already taken the case back. In 2013, a woman had alleged that she was sexually harassed by Soren, and had lodged a complaint with a metropolitan magistrate’s court in Mumbai, seeking to register an FIR.
The police informed the court that while the woman had lodged a complaint against Hemant Soren in the year 2013, she had withdrawn the case in the same year. The woman also withdrew another petition, where she had alleged that Soren was behind an accident that she met with in August 2020. The woman has sought the permission of the court to withdraw the petition and all other pending litigations. The court has permitted the woman’s request but it has kept the petition for consideration on Wednesday.
The refusal by The Mumbai police to proceed against Soren came after the Bombay High Court had refused the plea of the woman to take the case back. In several twists in turns in the case, first the woman had alleged in 2013 that she was raped by Soren, and had lodged a complaint with a metropolitan magistrate’s court in Mumbai, but she had withdrawn the case in the same year, and the court had allowed the withdrawal. Again in 2020, the woman alleged Soren was behind her accident and approached Bombay High Court seeking to register an FIR, but in January this year, she again approached the High Court wanting to withdraw the second petition also. But this time, the High Couret had refused to allow her to withdraw the complaint.
In the meanwhile, two intervention applications were filed in this case by Jharkhand-based former journalist Sunil Kumar Tiwari and NGO Stree Roshni Trust seeking an order from the court to not allow the woman to withdraw her petition. The bench headed by justices SS Shinde and Manish Pitale was informed by public prosecutor Deepak Thakare that the applicants had no locus standi as the woman had sought to withdraw her petitions and the applications were filed with political interest.
Thakare further mentioned that in 2013 the woman had filed a complaint before the magistrate seeking to lodge a rape case against Soren but had withdrawn the complaint the same year.
Woman alleges Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren raped her like an animal, sex maniac
In December 2020, a letter had gone viral on social media where the woman had requested police protection fearing safety to her life from Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, whom she had accused of raping her. She had registered a complaint accusing Soren of not only raping her but also attempting to kill her.
The woman, who is Mumbai-based model alleged that she was not only raped by Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in 2013 but has also constantly threatened her and the family against speaking about the alleged incident in the public.
According to the complaint filed in September 2013 and which was later withdrawn, the accused had met Hemant Soren at a party in Mumbai’s Taj Lands End in Bandra through one friend Suresh Nagre. The victim alleged that Suresh Nagre, whom she had thought as a mentor, had asked her to join him at a party, saying that she would get a chance to meet some film celebrities who would be at the party. As per the woman, she reached Hotel Taj Lands at around 10 pm and met Suresh Nagre. Nagre asked her to come to a suite on the 21st floor where she was reportedly raped by Hemant Soren later.
The women alleged that Hemant Soren raped her like an animal, sex maniac. After sexually assaulting her, Hemant Soren allegedly asked the complainant to leave the premises in the wee hours of the morning with a threat that if she tells anyone, she’d be killed. The victim said that Soren promised to help her to launch her film career if she kept quiet.
The woman also said that she was pressurised to withdraw the complaint she had filed against the accused. She said after filing the complaint, she started receiving threats by and on behalf of the accused persons. According to her, the threats were of dire consequences and warned of killing her and their family if she failed to withdraw the complaint case. Succumbing to threats and coercion, she was forced to withdraw the criminal complaint against Hemant Soren.
After seven years, in 2020, the woman had filed another complaint with the Mumbai Police, alleging that she was raped and intimidated by Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren.