A 20-year-old engineering student in Uttar Pradesh’s Agra “publicly stripped” in an attempt to have the man who allegedly raped her arrested. After waiting 17 days, the accused, a 22-year-old pursuing an MTech at the Indian Institute of Technology, Jammu, was finally arrested on Tuesday. According to The Indian Express report, the student’s public protest was a response to her “frustration”, following which she was taken to a mental hospital and observed for three days.
“We called the accused to Agra for further investigation and later arrested him when we found that he had been mentally and physically harassing her for the last few months,” a senior police officer was quoted as saying.
According to the police, the accused is originally from the Ghazipur district in Uttar Pradesh. Before enrolling at IIT, he completed his BTech at a university in Agra.
Incident took place on August 10
In her complaint to the local police, the woman from Lucknow alleged that she was raped in a moving car by the accused on the evening of August 10. Although an FIR was filed on August 11 based on her complaint, the police reportedly did not pursue the arrest, claiming the accused was in Jammu at the time of the alleged incident.
Over the following days, the woman visited police stations and met with senior officers. Frustrated by the lack of action, she chose to publicly undress on Sunday to compel the authorities to address her case.
A social worker who saw the woman’s public protest on Sunday was quoted as saying, “The woman undressed herself on the road in the afternoon and yelled anti-police slogans. Two women quickly came to her aid, covered her with clothes, and took her to a nearby clinic. We thought she might be mentally distressed and alerted the police, who then took her to the mental hospital.”
The hospital director said, “She was admitted here on Sunday evening, and we kept her under observation for three days. During this period, we closely monitored her daily activities, from morning until bedtime. We observed nothing unusual, and on Tuesday, she was handed over to her mother, who had been brought here from Lucknow.”