Groped, disrobed, drugged, blackmailed: SAU sexual assault victim reveals horrific details

For days before she was subjected to alleged sexual assault on the campus of India’s prestigious South Asian University in Maidan Garhi here, the 18-year-old first-year student had been receiving lewd emails demanding sexual favours. These culminated into threats to make her morphed nude pictures public.

It was the fear of public humiliation that led the victim to the crime scene on the campus on the night of Saturday.

What followed was a series of horrific assaults on her, as detailed in the FIR the Delhi Police have registered in the matter. Four men allegedly groped and disrobed the girl, forcing her to swallow a pill as she resisted.

At one point in the assault, the FIR states, the sound of a nearby food cart drove the perpetrators away, leaving behind the shocked victim.

The police received the first call about the assault at 3 pm on Sunday. It was made by a friend of the victim, who continues to be in shock as details of the crime captured in the FIR reveal.

“One of the four men grabbed my T-shirt and tried to pull it off. Someone else hit my thigh. They tried to drag me to an empty room. One of them covered my eyes,” states the FIR quoting the victim who said her clothes were torn when she fought back.

“The assault stopped only when the sound of a food cart passing near the mess area caused the men to flee, one of them punched me in the face before running away,” the woman said as per the FIR.

Detailing the sequence of events leading up to the horrific crime that has triggered massive protests on the SAU campus, the FIR cites the girl’s statement that she had been receiving a series of emails for the past 10 days demanding sexual favours.

“I received a message on my WhatsApp and Telegram where a boy told me to look out for a girl who would be standing near the B-Block compound of the university. This boy told me to accompany the girl to gate number 3 and threatened to circulate my photos,” the contents of the FIR read.

At this point, states the FIR, the victim, believing that the photos may have already been circulated, decided to go towards the nearby convocation centre to find out who was sending her these messages.

“I saw several people standing around the convocation centre where the person emailing me had asked me to come. Sensing something was terribly off, I sat along the stairs and in no time was approached by a security guard who then called a middle-aged man and two students to the spot where the four men sexually assaulted me,” alleged the victim.

Based on her complaint, the police have registered an FIR under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Ankit Chauhan said today.

The FIR has been registered under Sections 70 (gangrape), 62 (attempt to commit an offence), 123 (causing hurt by means of poison, etc) 140(3) (kidnapping or abduction), 115(2) (causing hurt to any person) 126(2) (wrongful restraint) and 3(5) (offences committed by multiple people with a common intention) of the BNS at the Maidan garhi police station.

The police said a PCR call regarding the incident was received at the Maidan Garhi police station around 3 pm on Sunday, after which a police team reached the university campus.

The call was made by a person known to the victim and after receiving the information, the police initiated preliminary inquiries, officials said.

South Asian University is an international university sponsored by the eight member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, operated under the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). The eight countries are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.