Hemlata’s statement recorded in the FIR is below:

Raju started following her with an intention of being friends with her. The duo started talking to each other. Soon, Raju proposed marriage. Hemlata replied she would talk to her parents.

On 15 June 2021, Raju took her to Dabra town. There, he intoxicated her and forced himself upon her against her wishes.

Hemlata soon found out that she was pregnant. When she told Raju, he calmed her down by saying they would marry soon.

Raju took her to meet his mother, Sugga Bai, who agreed to the marriage.

However, she was against the illegitimate child. She said the pregnancy before wedding would damage her family’s reputation. Raju gave her pills to terminate the pregnancy.

They got married on 18 September 2021. The wedding took place at Sheetla Mata Mandir as per Hindu rituals. A reception party was thrown at a hotel in the City Centre area of Gwalior.

They lived in Gwalior and things were fine between them for a few months. The couple moved to his parents’ house in Dabra. There, she discovered that Raju was not Hindu but Muslim. His name was not Raju Jatav but Mohammed Imran.

“I had already married him by then, and staying with him was the only option left for me. As my parents had broken all ties with me, I had no place to go. So I decided to stay at Raju’s home,” the statement says.

It further says that her brothers-in-law, Aman and Punni, would hurl vulgar remarks at her and made indecent jokes in her presence. At times, they touched her inappropriately. When she complained about this to her husband (Imran) and mother-in-law (Sugga) they said that such jokes were common and acceptable.

Imran took Hemlata’s gold chain, bracelet, a ring, and withdrew an amount of Rs 2 lakh from her bank account.

After marriage when she again became pregnant and gave the news to her mother-in-law, she suggested her to terminate the pregnancy yet again. Imran supported this decision. When she resisted, she was pushed from the staircase one day. This caused injuries and a doctor suggested she should abort the child.

One day, a cleric named Mohammed Osama visited the house. He told her in the presence of the family that she had failed to gain acceptance of her in-laws because she was Hindu. He suggested her that she should accept Islam and remarry Imran with Islamic rituals. After that, her life would become normal.

Within days, her mother-in-law and brother-in-law made her recite kalma and have nikah with Imran.

On the same night of the nikah, she was sent to a room where Maulana Osama followed her. Imran locked the door from outside. The cleric tried to have sex with her against her wishes. When she tried resisting and threatened to go to police, the cleric said her attempts to escape were futile. The cleric raped her that night.

As instructed by the cleric, Imran’s family kept her locked in that room for two days and denied her food. After that, her mother-in-law entered the room with her son Aman. She told Hemlata that if she did not follow their instructions, they would hang her the same way they hanged Imran’s first wife.

Her mother-in-law said that she would have to make physical relations with her brother-in-law too. That night, Aman raped her.

Two people, who would visit her mother-in-law and who Hemlata can identify by their faces, also raped her.

Hemlata was taken out of her room twice a day only to use the washroom and take bath. At all other times, she remained locked inside that room. On resisting, Aman would show her a pistol and threaten her saying he would kill her family.

On 20 April 2022, her brother-in-law Punni entered her room and raped her. He left the room unlocked. That day, she escaped from the house. She took a lift from a truck driver, who dropped her at Gudda-Guddi square in Gwalior. From there, he reached the Gol Pahadiya area where her sister Kajal, who is married, lives.

Kajal and her husband Rohit took her to a hospital and later helped her register a police case against Imran and his family.

The charges applied

Based on the above statement by Hemlata, police booked Raju alias Imran Khan, his mother Sugga Begum, brothers Aman and Punni, Maulana Osama and two unidentified men under IPC sections 376 (rape), 354 (assault), 506 (criminal intimidation), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 34 (act done by several people). Additionally, section 3 and 5 of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of religion Act has been invoked.

What the police say

This correspondent talked over the phone on 2 May to investigating officer of this case, Shailja Gupta, who is town inspector, Mahila Thana, Gwalior. The officer said that key accused Imran Khan, his brother Punni and cleric Osama have been arrested.

She said that the police are searching for Sugga Begum and Aman, along with two unnamed men, who are absconding.

Hemlata recorded her statement in front of the magistrate under section 164 of the CrPC on 26 April, the officer said.

Asked if any further charges have been invoked after the victim’s statement, she said no.

The officer repeated the district administration’s version that demolition of the accused’s house had nothing to do with the crime but was an action against illegal construction.

Statement by the victim as told to Swarajya

Hemlata was reluctant to talk when this correspondent first contacted her, over the phone. She agreed to speak only after following up for two days.

She said she is 22 and met Raju alias Imran in Gwalior at a marriage function. Hemlata hails from Dabra, which is around 50 kilometres from Gwalior, but she lived with her sister Kajal in Gwalior that time for her studies.

Hemlata noticed that Raju was following her every day after that function.

He approached her to talk. Initially, Hemlata was reluctant, but with time, and considering his persistence, she agreed to become his friend. They started talking to each other and soon fell in love.

Raju proposed her marriage, but she needed to ask her parents first. “It was a tough battle ahead, I know, as Raju belonged to the Jaatav [Scheduled] Caste. My parents were not ready for the alliance. My family is Brahmin by caste and we do not eat onion or garlic,” said Hemlata.

Sheetla Mata Mandir

Get Swarajya in your inbox.