News Brief
Karnataka: Men Who Assaulted Interfaith Couple In Haveri Hotel Charged With Gangrape, Three Nabbed So Far
Pic Via Twitter.
The seven men who barged into the room of a Karnataka lodge and thrashed an interfaith couple have been charged with rape.
This comes after the woman who was abused by a group of seven Muslim men inside a hotel in Karnataka's Haveri district alleged that she was gang raped by the accused.
She and her partner were thrashed by the group of men over their interfaith relationship.
The woman alleged that the men later took her to a deserted place and took turns to rape her.
The incident took place on 7 January but only came to light after the victims narrated their ordeal to the police, and registered a case against the accused.
In a video released by the woman yesterday (11 January), she alleged that the men dragged her from the room and took her near a river where they thrashed her.
She alleged that the men took turns raping her and afterwards they took her to the city in a car and the driver also raped her. She was later dropped at a bus stop.
She said she didn't know the name of all the men who assaulted her but one of them was called Aftab.
"I can identify them if they are produced in front of me. The video footage would show all of them clearly. It includes all of them who raped me. I beg that they should all be punished," said the woman, India Today reported.
"We weren't told about rape earlier. We came to know about this only through media report about the video by the woman. We have booked a case under the appropriate section," Haveri SP Anshu Kumar said, reports news agency PTI.
According to the Police, the Muslim woman, who is married, was in a relationship with the man she had checked into the hotel with.
According to the report, the accused men wanted to ensure that the couple didn't report the crime, so they recorded the videos to blackmail them.
Videos of the assault, filmed by the attackers themselves, emerged on social media.
The videos show the six men waiting outside the room of the lodge in Hanagal Taluk of Haveri District.
After recording the room number, they knock on the door and wait.
When the door is opened by a man, they barge in and head straight to the woman, who tries to cover her face with a burqa.
Hurling expletives, the men hit the woman so hard that she falls to the floor.
The man is also assaulted and then caught by two or three of the attackers when he tries to run out of the room.
One of the attackers corners the woman near the bed while another hits her and drags her to the floor again.
In another video, which appears to be shot outside the lodge after the attack, the woman was seen desperately attempting to cover her face but the men lift her hijab and film her.
A complaint was lodged by the couple at the Hangal police station and three out of the six men, who are from the minority community, have reportedly been arrested.
