A woman was gang-raped allegedly by 11 men in Punjab's Moga on Wednesday
The Punjab Police have said that a young woman who alleged that she was gang-raped by 11 men, including the husband of a friend, now says she had consensual sex.
The police had registered a case after the woman alleged that she was visiting a friend on Wednesday when the latter's husband and some men abducted her and took her to a deserted room in the village fields, where they took turns to rape her.
On camera, the woman, a
dupatta wrapped around her face, showed injury marks on her arms, as she narrated at a Moga hospital how she was allegedly assaulted. At the same hospital, a male friend who was with her, is being treated for injuries, with his head bandaged. He said, "There were 12-13 men who beat me up... I don't know why.
But Punjab's Deputy Inspector General of Police AS Chahal has now said, "We have nabbed the main accused... He is telling us about different things which we will tell you later. Prima facie, it's not looking like gang-rape... the girl willingly went with her boyfriend."
The woman belongs to Moga in Punjab, which has witnessed massive protests over the death of a 14-year-old girl who was molested on a private bus and later pushed off the moving vehicle. The teen hit her head and died; her mother, who was also molested and then thrown off the bus, is in hospital with severe injuries.
Four men have been arrested and charged with molestation and murder.
The Congress and Aam Aadmi Party brought up the girl's death in Parliament on Thursday, attacking Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal of the Akali Dal and his family. The bus in which the girl was assaulted is run by a company in which the Badals have stake.
"Moga is Punjab's Nirbhaya," said Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, drawing parallels with the brutal gang-rape and murder of a medical student in a moving bus in Delhi in 2012.
The Congress has demanded a judicial inquiry, alleging that local authorities will not act because of the Badal connection.