Activist from West Bengal gang-raped at Tikri border Protest site by alleged Farmers, dies
The victim, an artist and designer, later contracted Covid-19 and died during treatment at a Delhi hospital while the Farmer Union leaders tried to suppress the case by not filing FIR for several days.
A first of its kind case at the farmer protests site (atleast the reported ones), a youth social activist was gang raped by 6 alleged farmers at the Tikri-Border, now the police has also booked the people with stringent sections of IPC.
The woman’s father has lodged a complaint with police in Bahadurgarh and an FIR has been registered against four men who run the ‘Kisan Social Army’.
The accused have been identified as Anil Malik, Anup Singh, Ankush Sangwan and Jagdish Brar, along with two other women. They have been booked under IPC sections 365, 342, 376-D, 506, 120-B. All of them had set up tents at Tikri border under the banner of Kisan Social Army.
The 25-year-old woman was admitted to Shivam Hospital four days before her death due to Covid-related complications.
According to the details in the FIR, a delegation of farmers, including the accused, had held a public meeting in Hooghly, Bengal, on April 1. The victim, an artist and designer, had come in contact with them and she convinced her parents to allow her to go to a protest site in Delhi to support the farmers.
On April 11, on the way to Punjab on train, accused Anil Malik tried to force himself upon her but she resisted and asked him to go away.
On April 12, on reaching Delhi border protest site, the victim was forced to share the tent with the accused as she was alone, the FIR stated.
She told her father on phone that the accused had not been decent with her and was trying to pressurise and blackmail her.
Her family brought the issue to the notice of farm leaders and her statement was video-recorded. She was shifted to another tent with women protesters
No farmer leader, however, explained the reason behind the delay in filing of the FIR. According to Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) leaders, after they came to know that a woman had been sexually harassed, they probed the matter.
The leaders, however, failed to explain why they did not approach the police as the woman’s claim was authenticated four days ago and the Kisan Social Army camp was removed from the site.
BKU Ekta Ugrahan woman wing head Harinder Kaur Bindu said that most of the SKM leaders knew about the incident.
“We are surprised why they kept silent and did not allow us to meet her father, who was under immense pressure,” she said. As per reports, Anup Singh, one of the accused, was an active member of the Aam Aadmi Party from the Hisar region. AAP MLA Sushil Kumar has confirmed his involvement with the party. Anup has however been missing from the protest site.
