A Congress party leader and his accomplices have come under the scanner for raping 23 women under the pretext of providing them jobs as ‘Anganwadi workers.’ The incident took place in Sirohi city of Rajasthan.
As per a report by Gantantra News, the primary accused were identified as Municipal Corporation Chairman Mahendra Mewada and the former Municipal Commissioner Mahendra Choudhary.
The 23 women were asked to travel from Pali to Sirohi and then made to stay at a wine shop. Mahendra Mewada, Mahendra Choudhary and 10-15 other men spiked their meals, which made the victims unconscious.
Thereafter, they took turns to rape the women. They also shot videos of the heinous crime. The accused were reportedly seen laughing while gangraping the women.
The videos were later used to blackmail the women and demand a whopping sum of ₹5 lakhs from each victim. On regaining consciousness, the rapists told the victims how they were violated in the name of providing jobs.
“We had a lot of fun with all of you. That’s why we called you guys by deceit,” Mewada and Choudhary reportedly told the women. They also forced the 23 women to sign on blank papers and took their thumb impressions.
Initially, 8 women had filed a complaint with the police against Mahendra Mewara and Mahendra Choudhary. They had demanded immediate action against the accused.
It has also come to light that the complaints were filed before the Rajasthan election polls when the Congress government was in power. However, no action was taken against the accused.
It was only after the BJP government came to power that action was initiated on the orders of a Rajasthan court. The investigation is now being headed by CO Sirohi Parasaram. Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma has constituted a committee to probe the matter.
Accused Mahendra Mewada had ‘cried foul’ over the allegations of rape and claimed that a ‘conspiracy’ was underway to frame him.
He said, “A conspiracy has been hatched against me. Even in the year 2023, 22 women had simultaneously filed a rape case, in which the victims did not even come forward. That allegation was also proved false. Now again a case has been registered. This is also false. Everything will become clear once the investigation concludes.”
Mahendra Choudhary also said, “I don’t know anyone. The municipality does not provide Anganwadi jobs. I have retired in August 2022. Everything is fake. I was not even the commissioner when the case was registered.”
OpIndia tried to contact the Superintendent of Police (Sirohi) Jyestha Maitreyi but found her official number switched off. We also tried to reach Deputy SP Parasaram Choudhary but to no avail.