Hamirpur:
A 35-year-old woman was allegedly raped by a cop in the presence of his subordinates in a police station in Uttar Pradesh's Hamirpur district.
The incident took place on Monday night when the woman had gone to Sumerpur police station to seek her husband's release who had been picked up by cops after a country-made pistol was seized from him.
The policemen allegedly demanded a bribe from the woman which she reportedly refused to pay.
She was then allegedly raped by the Station House Officer (SHO), Rahul Pandey. Shockingly, the three constables on duty allegedly did not intervene.
While the SHO has been arrested, the three constables have been removed from duty.
The incident comes even as the state government is under fire for the deteriorating law and order situation in the state following a series of gruesome rapes and murders. The Badaun case, especially, made international headlines as the chilling images of two teenage cousins hanging from a tree sparked massive outrage. The young girls, aged 14 and 15, were abducted and then gang-raped and murdered when they had headed into the fields to relieve themselves. Two policemen face accusations of being criminal accessories.
In a horrific reminder of that case, a woman was found hanging from a tree in Bahraich on Tuesday night. Her family alleges that she was first gang-raped and then murdered by her attackers.
(Read)Faced with a barrage of criticism, the Akhilesh Yadav government was in damage control mode as it transferred 36 officers of the Indian Administrative Service on Tuesday. The chief minister, at a meeting, also reportedly asked top cops and officials at the district level to be more alert and visit a crime scene immediately and take strict action.
(Akhilesh Yadav's Step One in Damage Control: 36 IAS Officers Transferred)