A woman was hanged after being raped while another was thrown out of a moving car by the accused party months after alleged sexual assault by a group of five people in Uttar Pradesh's Agra.
In the first case, a 25-year-old Dalit woman was raped and strangled allegedly by a Uttar Pradesh Police Constable posted in Agra, police said on Tuesday. The woman's body was found hanging from the ceiling of the policeman's rented room on December 29, police said.
According to police, the woman had visited the constable's rented room in Agra a day before the incident and was later found hanging there.
"Raghvendra Singh (27), a police constable posted in Agra has been arrested in the murder of a 25-year-old woman who was found hanging in his rented room in Belanganj under the limits of Chhata Police Station in Agra city," RK Singh, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Chhata, was quoted as saying in a PTI report.
Agra Police has booked the constable under sections 306, 376 and SC/ST Act of IPC, he said. The post mortem report revealed hanging as the cause of death.
The constable, a native of Jhansi, himself informed the colleagues about the incident, the officer said. "Constable Raghavendra Singh is a native of Jhansi and was living in rented accommodation in Belanganj. The two were known to each other from the past. The girl was working at a Kidney Centre in Gurugram," RK Singh said.
According to the victim's brother, the two had taken training for nursing in Jhansi and had been in touch since. "We had even visited the home of Raghvendra Singh, but his family refused our offer of marriage. But he was in touch with my sister," he said.
He was arrested on Sunday on the complaint of the family members of the woman.
In another case, a woman who was allegedly gang-raped in a homestay in November alleged that she was thrown out of a moving car after being forced to sign a letter to settle the case, police said on Tuesday. The 25-year-old woman was found unconscious on Inner Ring Road in Agra on December 30, they said.
The woman, who was an employee at the homestay was allegedly gang-raped on November 11 and five persons, including a woman, were arrested for it. After the incident, a purported video of the woman crying for help had also surfaced.
According to police, the woman said she was called for a meeting in a restaurant by a friend of the accused where she was forced to consume a sedated drink and “sign a compromise letter in favour of the accused” who are in jail, she told the police. Later she was thrown out of a moving car on Agra’s Inner Ring Road, she said.
"The victim was sent to hospital for medical examination and treatment,” PTI quoted Suraj Kumar Rai, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Agra City, as saying.
In the two-month-old gangrape incident, the woman had alleged that she was forced to indulge in immoral activities at the homestay with other guests after the accused filmed an objectionable video of her. When she refused, she was beaten and forced to drink alcohol, the woman had said in her police complaint.
A purported video had gone viral back then in which the woman was seen crying and seeking help. In another video, she was seen being dragged into a room even as she begged to be left alone.
Agra Police had registered an FIR against five persons, including a woman and the manager of the homestay. The accused were sent to jail after the incident.
