UP: Dalit rape survivor, 21, files case after 7 years of silence as accused shares videos of assault

Keshav Agarwal | TNN | Updated: Dec 11, 2020

PILIBHIT: Seven years after she was allegedly raped and filmed, a Dalit woman in Pilibhit, now 21, broke her silence and
demanded arrest of the accused after he shared the visuals of the assault with his friends recently. The woman said she
remained silent all this while because the man had threatened to share the videos and photos with villagers, police said. She
was a school girl, just 14, when the alleged incident took place.
But, days after he allegedly shared the visuals of the rape, the woman decided to fight for the justice. After approaching police
with a complaint over a month ago, she sat on a protest outside Pilibhit’s district magistrate office, demanding arrest of the
accused.

According to the victim, a resident of a village in Pilibhit’s Barkhera area, she was first raped on January 1, 2013 when she was a
student of Class IX. The accused, Prempal, filmed the assault, and later raped her repeatedly while threatening to make the
phone recordings public.
In her complaint given to police, she had said that Premplal had a Jan Suvidha Kendra in her village. She had first visited the
centre to file a scholarship form in the last week of December 2012. On January 1, when she had gone to a nearby town to buy
some medicines and was waiting for a conveyance to return home, Prempal reached there and offered to drop her home. “I
trusted him. But he sedated me, took me to a lonely place and raped me,” she alleged.

Station house officer of Barkhera, Kamal Singh, said, “We had booked Prempal on October 24 under section 376 (rape), 328
(causing hurt by means of poison), 342 (wrongful confinement), 504 (intentional insult), 506 (criminal intimidation) of IPC,
section 3, 4 of POCSO act, and section 3 (2) (v) of the SC/ST act. She sat on dharna because he has not been arrested. We will
soon arrest him.”

Superintendent of police Jai Prakash Yadav clarified, “The matter was brought to the notice of police after seven years from the date of incident. So, it was decided to investigate the case before making the arrest. The investigation is almost over and the circle officer has been directed to immediately arrest the accused.”
(The victim’s identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)