Mumbai: A 29-year-old woman and her husband were allegedly abducted, stripped and thrashed by eight people to force them to withdraw an old rape complaint in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district, police said Tuesday.
Later, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh told the Assembly that a probe under Nashik Rural SP Aarti Singh and Ahmednagar Additional SP Deepali Kale, both women IPS officers, will be carried out and completed within one month.
The incident took place February 24 near the civil hospital in Aurangabad, some 370 kilometres from here, but came to light after a video of the torment went viral on social media Monday, said an official.
“When the couple was going home in an auto-rickshaw at around 8.20pm on that particular day, a person seated next to them sedated them. They were then taken to a room, confined, and asked to withdraw a rape complaint lodged by the woman in 2016 against some of them,” the official informed. The couple was stripped and thrashed and beaten with belts after petrol was poured on them with the abductors threatening to put the two on fire.
“After a video of the incident went viral Monday, we approached the couple and registered a case of attempt to murder, criminal intimidation and other offences under IPC and Information Technology Act in Tophkhana police station against eight persons,” said another police official.
Among those who assaulted the couple are the woman’s brother, her two brothers-in-law, as well as two people who posed as policemen, police added.
Ahmednagar in- charge Superintendent of Police Sagar Patil said no arrests have been made in the case as yet.
The matter was raised in the Assembly by Leader of Opposition and former Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
PTI