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A plea for inquiry and police protection were raised by a woman alleging that she was subjected to gang rape by four persons, including the Arunachal Chief Minister Pema Khandu in 2008. An official complaint was not filed until 2015, for the alleged incident dating back to 10 years ago. The bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi questioned the bonafides of the petitioner and refused to entertain the plea.
The bench, however, permitted her to approach the competent High Court, granting her liberty to seek police protection.
In pursuance of appropriate legal recourse against police inaction on her allegations, the petitioner had also sought permission to approach the Delhi High Court. She submitted to voluntarily undergo Narco Analysis/Polygraph Test for establishing the truthfulness of her allegations.
The petitioner has submitted to the Court that she was 15 years old when the incident had occurred and was working in a Public Call Office in Arunachal Pradesh. She was enticed by a man named Phurma Lama who offered to get her a government job. She has claimed to met three other men during the meeting, Pema Khandu who introduced himself as an Army colonel, Dorjee Wangchu, an Assistant Mineral Development Officer at Ziro and Thupten Tashi, a Government school teacher. She has alleged that, intoxicated substances were mixed in her drinks after which the four men allegedly raped her. After she regained consciousness, she claims to have been slapped and warned of dire consequences by Khandu. After being threatened by Khandu, she submits to have unable to register formal complaint against the men.
She initially was not aware of the original identities of the accused and only identified Khandu in 2012 after seeing the then, Tourism Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, after seeing his photographs in the newspapers.
A formal complaint was lodged by the petitioner in 2015 at the Itanagar Police Station, but the officers were reluctant to register the complaint. A plea was made by her before the Chief Judicial Magistrate to direct the police authorities to register an FIR, which was dismissed. The National Commission for Women failed to act on her complaint too. She has, therefore, now approached the Apex Court in this matter.
"The petitioner is threatened with criminal cases against her also and there is already a defamation case against the petitioner in which a restraining order has been passed. The petitioner has sent complaints to all authorities including Prime Minister of India but of no avail. Now she can only approach this Hon'ble Court in this regard due to the restraint order and issues of safety to pursue remedies in the North East."
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