Pune: In a stunner, an alleged rape victim from Pune has turned the tables on a senior Bharatiya Janata Party woman leader, and now has appealed to the police for protection as she apprehends threats to her life.
The alleged rape victim spilled the beans of a purported conspiracy hatched by state BJP Women’s Wing Vice President Chitra Wagh, accusing her and some others of seeking to frame Shiv Sena MinisterDr. Raghunath Kuchik, who is the General Secretary of Bharatiya Kamgar Sena, the party labour wing.
Speaking to a private Marathi TV channel, the victim, in her early 20s, claimed that Wagh, along with Mohammed Ahmed ‘Uncle’, Deepak Pawar and others, had “kidnapped” her.
She further said that Wagh and Ahmed forced her to implicate Dr. Kuchik in a false rape case under threats of death and to ‘eliminate’ her if required, and used an app for purportedly sending and receiving messages from the accused minister’ mobile phone, and sullying his image.
The alleged victim charged Wagh and Ahmed of constantly pressurising her, injecting sedatives, confining her for several days, and Pawar forcing her to submit a letter allegedly penned by Dr. Kuchik to Pune police, and then abandoning her in the wild on the Goa-Pune road.
“The mobile phones of my family and mine are being tapped… They immediately call me up whenever I get calls, especially from journalists. Even now our phones are under surveillance… Wagh instructed me what to tell the police or talk to the media. I have been threatened by them several times,” the victim claimed.
Stoutly rubbishing the victim’s contentions on camera, Wagh told media persons that she would now be targetted by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government.
Maharashtra State Commission for Women (MSCW) Chairperson and NCP leader Rupali Chakankar said finally, the fraud perpetrated by the “power-lusty BJP playing temple politics” now stands exposed.
“Soon after we received the victim’s complaint, a full investigation was launched against Dr. Kuchik, and later a Pune court had granted him anticipatory bail. However, the BJP’s falsehoods have ruined the victim’s future,” said Chakankar.
NCP women’s wing leader Rupali Patil-Thombare said even when the matter was under investigation by the Pune Police and the courts, Wagh held press conferences and conducted a media trial of Dr. Kuchik by displaying the alleged evidence against him.
“With the fresh twist in the case, it is possible that Wagh herself maybe under the scanner,” warned Patil-Thombare.
Senior Sena leader and Deputy Chairperson of Maharashtra Legislative Council Dr. Neelam Gorhe said briefly that the police should give equal weightage to the victim’s revelations in the case.
Congress state Chief Spokesperson Atul Londhe said this is yet another glaring example of how the BJP’s dirty tricks department works in Maharashtra and other non-BJP states where they are desperate to topple the governments and grab power by stooping to any depths.
Contacted by IANS, Dr. Kuchik declined to comment since the matter is sub-judice and police investigations.
The victim had sparked a furore in February when she accused Dr. Kuchik of allegedly raping her on multiple occasions with promises of marriage, abducting, torturing, threatening and intimidating, forcing her to undergo an abortion, etc.
Though Dr. Kuchik had consistently refuted the charges as fictitious and baseless, the Pune police and the MSCW initiated a probe while the BJP attempted it to gain political mileage and embarrass the MVA government.
–IANS