Police apathy forces rape victim, family to flee to Nepal after threats from accused

An 11-year-old daughter of a security guard was allegedly raped at a construction site by Naresh Nagesh, a contractor described as “extremely influential”

THANE: Even as Badlapur continues to be on the boil over the alleged sexual assault on two four-year-old girls in a school, another case of alleged rape of a minor girl has come to light which points at the heightened vulnerability of victims and their families and the police’s tardiness in acting on their complaints.

Entries in the police station diary, which HT has seen, mention that suspended senior inspector Shubhada Shitole had visited the crime scene. Representational Image. (Photo by DIBYANGSHU SARKAR / AFP)(AFP)

In June this year, an 11-year-old daughter of a security guard was allegedly raped at a construction site by Naresh Nagesh, a building contractor whom the girl’s father described as “extremely influential”. Nagesh threatened the family after an FIR was registered in July, when they visited the government hospital in Ulhasnagar to abort the victim’s five-week pregnancy, forcing them to flee to their native place in Nepal.

Senior police inspector Subhada Shitole, who was suspended over charges of negligence and delay in registering an FIR in the case of sexual assault on the four-year-olds, was involved in this case too, showed a perusal of police reports.

“I started working as a security guard at the construction site around three months before the incident,” the 33-year-old father of the girl told HT over the phone from his village in Nepal. He said he lived with his wife and two daughters in a small room provided by his employer in the under-construction building where he worked as a guard.

“In June, my elder daughter had gone to my friend’s house in the same building,” he said. When she was returning, the accused dragged her to an adjacent under-construction building, raped her and threatened her not to tell anyone about it, he alleged.

“She was in pain when she returned home, but didn’t tell us anything. Later, she refused to go out,” the distraught father told HT. On July 18, when the girl complained of stomachache, the family took her to a nearby clinic where she was prescribed some medicines. But the pain did not subside, and when they visited the doctor again on July 19, he surmised she was pregnant and referred them to the Central Hospital in Ulhasnagar.

“At the hospital, when it was confirmed that our daughter was five weeks pregnant, the doctors intimated the police and we gave our statements,” he said. An FIR was registered the same day, July 20, against an unnamed accused under sections 376 (a) and (b) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita and section 8 of the POCSO Act.

Reprisals followed almost immediately. “Different people approached us and told us to back out from the case, including while we were still at the hospital, if we wanted to live,” he said. When the family returned to their room from the hospital, they found it was ransacked.

“The accused had inquired with my friends for our address before attacking our house. Later, the police informed us that he was identified as Naresh Nagesh, who we know is extremely influential,” the father said.

Entries in the police station diary, which HT has seen, mention that suspended senior inspector Shubhada Shitole had visited the crime scene and met with the victim as she was in-charge of the case at the time.

“Officers attached to the Badlapur East police station were aware of the incidents and the accused, but they did nothing to arrest him,” alleged the girl’s father. “They claimed Nagesh was absconding even though we kept receiving threats. Being scared for our lives and the safety of our younger daughter, we had no option but to return to our village,” he told HT.

The family was not surprised with reports about the sexual assault on the two four-year-old girls, he said. “It is very unfortunate but Badlapur is getting worse day-by-day because the police are unable to control the criminals,” he noted.