Seventeen people have been booked for allegedly raping a woman, around 35-years-old, after holding her husband hostage in Jharkhand’s Dumka district, police officials said on Wednesday.
One of the accused has been detained based on a statement filed by the woman, officials said.
According to a complaint filed by the woman, she was returning from a weekly market with her husband on Tuesday night when the accused intercepted them.
“As per the statement of the woman, she was retuning with her husband from village market on Tuesday night when 17 people intercepted her and took her husband hostage before committing the crime,” said Santhal region deputy inspector general Sudarshan Mandal. A medical examination of the woman, a mother of five, has been conducted and the police are waiting for the results, Mandal said.
“The woman said she could identify only one person. We have detained the accused for interrogation. If his involvement is found in the crime, he will be sent to jail,” Mandal said.
After the woman registered her complaint, the DIG visited her village along with Dumka superintendent of police (SP) Ambar Lakra.
The DIG said, “We are interrogating the villagers regarding the crime. We are investigating the matter meticulously, as the woman is changing her statement. When I was interrogating her in her village, she said there were five persons involved in the crime.”
According to the data available on the website of the Jharkhand police, as many as 1033 cases of rape have been filed till July this year, up from the 1416 rape cases filed in the corresponding period in 2019.
As many as 1090 cases were registered in 2018, 914 cases in 2017, 1032 in 2016 and 1053 in 2015, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
