Widow gang-raped, tortured for 8 yrs; probe launched against 7

Beed/Maharashtra: A gang of seven persons raped and gang-raped a young widow here for more than eight years in a horrific ordeal. Now she found the courage to approach the police and lodge a complaint, IANS reported.

Based on the survivor’s complaint, Beed Police launched an investigation against the seven accused who were specifically named by her. The accused have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to rape, conspiracy, gang rape, abduction, blackmail and other crimes.

They took her to various locations in the city, repeatedly raped, gang-raped, tortured and took her through unnatural acts; she informed the police.

Police briefed that in 2014 when the widow, then 24, went to her home late in the evening in an auto-rickshaw, but later the driver called to inform that she had left her purse in his three-wheeler.

He called her to his home, overpowered and raped her, and even made a video clip of the act. But she kept quiet in view of the social stigma it could attract as she was a widow.

The auto driver, identified as Sandeep Pingale, later summoned her to many places and raped her, ignoring her pleas and protests. He allegedly passed the video clips to his relatives Gorakh Ingole and his brother Balaji Ingole in 2015. They also started exploiting her repeatedly by all means. Five years later, Gorakh Ingole took her to an isolated place, and four of his friends took turns to gang-rape her for more than six hours. They indulged in unnatural sexual acts, and the survivor bled from private parts, which was also ignored by the alleged demons.

In 2021, the woman became pregnant, but when she told her perpetrators, Gorakh Ingole forcibly took her to a clinic for an abortion. After that, she fled the town, and her oppressors pursued her and continued their demonic acts.

It was on Thursday she lodged a complaint with the Majalgaon Police, finally.