No rape by cops, girls tell Chhattisgarh court

RAIPUR - Two days after accusing four policemen of gang raping them in a police station complex in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district, the two ‘victims’ Friday retracted their earlier statements in a court Saturday.

The girls told a local court at Gharghora town Friday that they were not raped by policemen.

The girls, one of them a minor, belong to Dharmjaigarh yown where residents were outraged late Thursday by the alleged rape of the girls by four policemen Nov 9.

The girls escorted by dozens of angry local residents registered a first information report (FIR) at Dharmjaigarh police station against the identified four policemen. The town is located in Raigarh district, about 280 km from Raipur.

During the court proceedings Friday, the two refused to identify the accused policemen when Raigarh police chief Rahul Sharma produced all policemen who were on duty Nov 9, before the girls for identification.

The girls have also refused to undergo medical tests.

The rape charges had on Thursday sparked severe criticism against police force and Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar had reacted to the incident an “extremely shocking” and promised “total justice to the victims”.

Now residents of Dharmjaigarh town were reported to be embarrassed after girls refused to substantiate their charges that they made in an FIR that they went to see off two relatives at the bus stop on the night of Nov 9 when a police patrol team picked the men up and took them to the Dharmjaigarh police station.

The girls reached the police station to find out why their relatives were nabbed but were forcibly taken to a house in the complex by two policemen who raped them. They then called two other colleagues over the phone, who too raped them, they alleged.