Police sid they have formed search teams to arrest the accused (Representational image)
A married woman was raped repeatedly by a Muslim occultist for 79 days in front of her two-and-half-year-old son in Odisha's Balasore district, the police said on Saturday. The police rescued the woman and her child from a locked room on Friday, but the accused, identified as SK Taraf, managed to escape. A hunt has been launched to arrest him.
In her police complaint, the survivor said her husband and in-laws forced her to stay with Taraf to resolve a marital discord between her and her in-laws. The woman, who got married in 2017, said she had to undergo physical and mental torture by her in-laws for dowry.
Taraf had assured the family that he would resolve the discord if the woman stayed with him for a few months. When she refused, her mother-in-law allegedly sedated her and when she later woke up, she found herself at the occultist's place along with her son, news agency PTI reported.
The occultist allegedly raped her for 79 days in the room in front of her son, the woman said in her police complaint, PTI reported.
On April 28, when she found that Tafar had left his mobile phone in the room, she called her parents and narrated the horror. Soon, they informed the police.
But the occultist managed to escape before the police reached. The woman has named her husband, his brother and other in-laws in the First Information Report, or FIR.
She has been hospitalised. Her condition is said to be stable.
With inputs from PTI