Brother-in-law’s ‘friends’ gangrape woman at gunpoint in Uttarakhand: Police

A woman was allegedly gangraped by three men at gunpoint while heading home with her brother-in-law on Sunday night in Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar district, police said. According to police, the incident took place around 9 pm on Sunday, when the woman was returning from a fair with her brother-in-law. Police said that they are investigating the possibility of the brother-in-law’s potential involvement in the crime and alleged that the accused were friends of his. A complaint filed by the woman said that the three men came on two motorcycles and pulled her brother-in-law aside to talk. The men then allegedly brandished a country-made pistol and asked her to go with them while threatening to shoot her. “They made me sit on a motorcycle behind my brother-in-law and took me to a deserted place. There, in front of my brother-in-law, all three boys raped me one after another,” she said in her complaint. The complaint said that when the woman resisted, one of the men allegedly slashed a finger on her left hand with a knife. “These men recorded a video of the assault and threatened me, demanding that whenever they call me, I must go with them or they will circulate the video. They further threatened that if I informed the police about this incident, they would kill me. They said they had previously been to jail in a murder case,” she said in the complaint. She also said in her complaint that her brother-in-law knew the three men. A senior police officer said that a forensics team has gathered evidence, and a medical examination of the woman has been carried out. “Raids are underway to arrest the accused. The brother-in-law is friends with the accused, and we are interrogating him. An FIR has been registered under the section of gangrape,” the officer said. Aiswarya Raj is a Senior Correspondent for The Indian Express, covering Uttarakhand. She brings sound journalistic experience to her role, having started her career at the organisation as a sub-editor with the Delhi city team. She subsequently developed her reporting expertise by covering Gurugram and its neighbouring districts before transitioning to her current role as a resident correspondent in Dehradun. She is an alumna of the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ) and the University of Kerala. She has reported on the state politics, governance, environment and wildlife, and gender. Aiswarya has undertaken investigations using the Right to Information Act on law enforcement, public policy and procurement rules in Uttarakhand. She has also attempted narrative journalism on socio-economic matters affecting local communities. This specific, sustained focus on critical regional news provides the necessary foundation for high trustworthiness and authoritativeness on topics concerning Uttarakhand. ... Read More