Amritsar, October 9
A convict, serving a sentence in the local high security central jail, along with another convict, raped his estranged wife in an abandoned house with the connivance of the police personnel, who had escorted them to the Civil Hospital, and doctors, the police said today.
The police has arrested three of the policemen involved in the incident while a manhunt has been launched to arrest another absconding policeman.
The main accused, Dilraj Singh and Sukhdev Singh, both convicts, would be brought for interrogation after production warrants from the local court would be issued.
Mr Harmanbir Singh Gill, SP (City II), said the main accused Dilraj Singh called his estranged wife from Mohali through his relative Sonu on the pretext that he was on the “deathbed” in the Civil Hospital. He had conveyed that he wanted to meet his wife for the “last time”.
On October 6, Sonu, Hirdeypal Singh and Sahib Singh, all accomplices of the convicts, forcibly took the victim in an abandoned house on the Majitha road where she was gang-raped after being tied up with a chair. The policemen, who were on guard duty, brought the main accused Dilraj Singh and Sukhdev Singh from the Civil Hospital, “allegedly in connivance with the doctors”.
While the victim was being raped, the policemen on guard were taking liquor and enjoying the hospitality of the convicts. Mr Gill said the accused were forcing the victim to transfer her house at Mohali to Dilraj Singh’s name, to which she refused.
The victim told The Tribune that she was able to flee from the abandoned house after freeing herself from the chains, when the policemen were dead drunk. She boarded a bus and reached Jalandhar. By the time she was almost unconscious.
The parents of the victim approached the Inspector-General of Police, Jalandhar Range, who deputed district Police chief, Amritsar, to investigate the case.
Mr Gill said in all 11 policemen were on guard duty while both convicts were under treatment at the hospital. He said while three policemen had been arrested and one absconding, a departmental action would be initiated against the rest of the seven guards too.
A case under Sections 376 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code had been registered at the local Civil Lines police station.
Earlier, too, some cases of undertrials, including senior politicians, managing comforts of home at the local government hospitals in connivance with the doctors and the jail authorities on the pretext of treatment had come to light. A few years ago, some policemen were placed under suspension for helping an undertrial to visit his house during his stay at the government hospital for treatment.
