Woman ‘accepts’ Rs7L to withdraw rape case, held

Tribune News Service

Karnal, August 22

The Karnal police arrested a woman school teacher from Sector-12 late on Friday allegedly for accepting Rs 7.25 lakh from a staff member of the same school for withdrawing her complaint of gang rape against the owner of the same school and a Tehsildar. Her husband was also arrested.

They were produced in court on Saturday afternoon. The police demanded two-day police remand, claiming that they have to recover Rs 6 lakh from the woman. She had allegedly taken this amount from the owner of the school earlier, but the court denied it and sent them to judicial custody.

The woman denied the allegations and blamed the police and those accused of trapping her in a false case. She also alleged that a son of an MLA of the district was also involved in this conspiracy. She said that she did not accept any money from anyone.

Vinay Bansal, counsel of the woman, also blamed the police for shielding the gang-rape accused and said that the police have registered this case and arrested the gang-rape victim to weaken the gang rape case, which was registered around two-and-a-half months back.

He alleged that the police did not arrest the gang-rape accused in the past two-and-a-half months. He said that the court had also “pulled up” the investigation officer for not applying proper procedure in the arrest. He said that the police did not get the currency notes colour-coated.

SP Surinder Singh Bhoria confirmed the arrest and said that she has demanded Rs 15 lakh from the school owner. The woman and her husband were arrested.

He denied the allegations and said that proper procedure was followed during the arrest. He refused to comment on the allegations levelled by woman.

“After getting the copy of the order, we will approach the court again for remand,” he said.

The woman teacher had earlier accused the owner and Tehsildar of raping her. The school owner had got registered an FIR against her for blackmailing him. The police had registered a gang rape case against the owner of the school and Tehsildar along with a case against the woman for blackmailing the school owner. The SP had constituted two SITs to investigate both cases.