A gang rape survivor in Odisha said she had to wait in a police van for 12 hours. (Representational)
A gang rape survivor in Odisha's Keonjhar district alleged that she had to wait in a police van for 12 hours for her medical examination.
The 37-year-old woman was taken in a police van to the local hospital on Thursday morning where doctors allegedly refused to conduct her medical examination as the place of occurrence of the crime was under another community health centre.
The police personnel accompanying the woman then took her to the other health centre. She was made to sit in the police van as there was no lady doctor available to conduct the medical examination reported news agency PTI.
The police then took her back to the first hospital where the doctors at about 9:30 pm of Thursday conducted her preliminary examination.
"I was told that the full medical examination could not be conducted during the night time. Therefore, I was told to come on Friday," the survivor said.
"However, the woman finally got her complete medical examination done on Friday", the police said.
"The doctors referred us to the government hospital as there was no lady doctor there. We also go through unavoidable problems. It's not that we intentionally delayed the medical examination," said the Inspector-in-Charge.
The woman's relatives alleged that the police brought the gang rape survivor to the police station from the government hospital, a distance of 40 kilometres at 9 am on Thursday. However, finally the doctor attended to her at 9.30 pm.
When contacted, Keonjhar, Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO), Kishore Chandra Prusty's office said he was on leave. All other senior health department officials refused to comment on the issue.
The woman was gang raped on January 18 when she was returning from her relative's house along with her cousin. Three men allegedly forcibly took the woman after assaulting her cousin. They then took turns to rape her, the woman said in her FIR.
The survivor has filed an FIR and an investigation is under way. No one has been arrested yet, the police said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)