Gang rape survivor starved, abused, held by Palghar police for 3 days

A 36-year-old woman thought she had lived her worst nightmare after she was gang-raped by three men in her own home. She thought the police would help her. She was wrong on both counts. The very officer who was put in charge of her case put her through hell all over again. For three days and three nights, she was held against her will at the police station, where she was allegedly starved, abused and made to sleep on the cold floor. All the while, the investigating officer - API Salunkhe from Palghar police station - implied that the rape was her fault, and refused to register a case. It was after an NGO intervened that he filed an FIR, but only against one accused - he refused to register it as a case of gang rape.

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The crime
Although the survivor has since left Palghar in the fear that either the accused or the police might harm her, she met mid-day's reporter and narrated her entire ordeal. The 36-year-old woman lived alone in Palghar and worked as a caretaker in Andheri. She met the accused on the night of May 15, when she was taking some food home from a restaurant. As she waited for her order, they got talking and she learnt his name was Sanjay Dubey. They exchanged numbers.

API Salunkhe allegedly held her at the Palghar police station over three nights, torturing her with abuses and starvation. Pics/Hanif Patel

Five days later, Dubey allegedly barged into her house and raped her. "He showed me an I-card that had ‘Police' written on it. He told me he was from the crime branch and he would frame me in some prostitution case. I was alone, so he overpowered me and raped me. He returned on three other days and raped me again," recalled the survivor.

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The survivor was made to sleep on the cold floor in this room at the Palghar police station for three nights, after being fed nothing but a vada pav the entire day. Pics/Hanif Patel

On August 6, Dubey returned a fourth time, but this time he brought two others with him. "They raped me turn by turn, and threatened to put me behind bars in a prostitution case if I revealed it to anyone. I was numb with shock," said the woman.

Humiliation
It was around 9.30 pm that she went to the Palghar police station to lodge her complaint, only to face further torment. API Salunkhe asked her several objectionable questions, such as why she lived alone, and why she hadn't shouted loudly when she was being raped. "Instead of filing the case, he yelled abuses at me," she alleged.

There was more humiliation in store when the cops took her back to her house for the panchnama. "They told me that my bed and belongings did not look like I had been gang-raped. Several broken bangles were by the bed, but the cops said that if I had been gang-raped by three people, more bangles should have broken. I was badly shaken by this behaviour," she told mid-day.

To her shock, the API refused to even let her go home. "I begged Salunkhe to let me go home, but he kept abusing me. I was asked to sleep on the floor in a room just beside the station house. I was not even given clothes or food," she added.

The next day, she was shunted from one hospital to another for her medical check-up, until it finally began at Cooper Hospital. "I told cops that I was hungry but they did not give me anything to eat except for one vada pav after the tests," she said, adding, "Once again, I begged Salunkhe and the other cops to let me go home but that night too, I was forced to sleep on the floor in that tiny room. I am the victim, but I was treated like a criminal. I was tortured and abused; I was in a lot of pain. There was no one to support me," said the survivor.

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"On August 8, I was taken for examination again. Salunkhe had told me not to say that I was gang-raped. When we came out of Cooper Hospital, he forced me in the police car and slapped me hard," said the woman, who was forced to spend a third night at the police station after being fed just a vada pav through the whole day.

Deliverance
On the fourth day, when she was taken to hospital for psychological assessment, the doctor called volunteers from the women's NGO Dilasa, and she narrated her ordeal to them. Meanwhile, the police had no idea where she was and spent a frantic two hours searching for her.

Later that night, after the NGO made a call to the police station, Salunkhe's behaviour changed drastically. "Salunkhe dropped me home that night and gave me some food too. I finally changed my clothes and took a bath. The next morning, there was a complete change in his behaviour. He pleaded with me to not tell anyone what had happened and said it had all been in anger. He even gave me a hand-written copy of the FIR," said the complainant.

But she had had enough. "I need justice. I was tortured, beaten and abused. I went to police station for help, never imagining what would happen to me. The police station has CCTV cameras, they can check what really happened. I want stringent punishment for the cops who did this to me. I also want the accused to be arrested and punished soon," she said.

Senior cop says
Sr PI Sanjay Hajare of Palghar police station said, "We never illegally detained her. Her medical took two to three days, which is normal procedure, after which we released her. From the beginning, she maintained that she was raped by one man. We recorded her statement in front of a woman counsellor and on camera. Never did she say that she was gang-raped. Now she has gone into hiding; if she comes forward, we will add the names of the other accused to the FIR."