New Delhi: Four army personnel were on Wednesday booked for allegedly molesting and raping a speech and hearing-impaired woman over four years inside the premises of Khadki Military Hospital in Maharashtra’s Pune.
The 34-year-old woman took help of a non governmental organisation (NGO) in Indore and filed a complaint in the local police station. The NGO forwarded her complaint to the union defence minister and army chief.
Mother of a 12-year-old boy, the woman works as a Grade IV employee at the hospital.
According to the First Information Report (FIR) lodged by her, she was first raped by a jawan in the bathroom of a family ward during her night shift soon after she joined the Khadki Military Hospital in 2014.
After recording her statement using sign language, a formal complaint was also submitted to the hospital’s commandant on Wednesday.
The police stated that the woman, a widow, reported her rape to her superior, a nursing assistant and also a jawan, via a text message in 2014 itself. But instead of taking action, the attendant joined hands with the first jawan and threatened to make her message public.
“Later two more jawans joined the duo and raped her repeatedly over four years. Two of the jawans also made a video clip of the abuse and blackmailed her. In the last four years, the woman complained to various administrative officials in the hospital, but nobody paid heed to her pleas,” inspector Rajendra Mohite of Khadki police station told Gulf News.
Mohite said a case under Sections 376 (rape) and 354 (molestation) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against the accused.
Besides the police case, a court of inquiry has also been initiated against the jawans.
A senior army officer said that disciplinary action against the accused jawans will be taken after the inquiry report.
The accused are from the Army Medical Corps who were studying at the Khadki Military Hospital.