A 44-year-old man was held on Wednesday for allegedly forcing his 22-year-old wife to file false cases of sexual assault against people, including a Gurugram court judge, to extort money.
The matter came to light on Tuesday when the 22-year-old woman approached Gurugram police to register a molestation complaint against a district and sessions judge.
The women claimed that the judge had molested her while he was recording her statement in a gang rape case filed on June 29, Hindustan Times reported.
During counselling, however, the woman confessed that her husband had threatened her to file a false case against the judge, police said.
A resident of Alwar in Rajasthan, the woman told police that she met the suspect, identified as Hzar Khan, in 2016 while she was working in a private hospital in Nuh. She told the police, that the man, who claimed to be a doctor, soon befriended and proposed to her.
She revealed that her husband had threatened her to file similar false cases to blackmail people in the past, police said. She alleged that trouble started when her husband forced her to change religion, the daily reported. She also accused him of indulging in unnatural sex.
“Hzar forced me to change my religion and marry him in 2017, a year after I started working at his Unani clinic. And soon after our marriage, he started torturing me mentally and physically. Not only he used to beat me regularly but also subjected me to unnatural sex,” the woman was quoted as saying by The Times of India.
Police commissioner Muhammad Akil told HT that the couple even got protection after the suspect claimed that there was a threat to their life from the woman’s family. The woman told police that it was her husband who forced her to file the petition of police protection.
MODUS OPERANDI
Giving details of her husband’s modus operandi, the woman said her husband started using her to extort money from people in 2018 after he was lodged in jail for four months in an attempt to murder case. To earn quick money, he forced his wife to file false cases of rape, police said.
The couple would file a case after a few days of the alleged incident to ensure that the police are unable to find any evidence, police said.
On May 1, the woman filed a case of gang rape against eight men in Rewari and later demanded money to settle the case.
Later on June 29, she filed another gang rape case against four men at Manesar following which she was taken to the judge to record her statement.
“After recording my statement, I was going back with my husband in a car when he asked me why it took so long to record the statement. He accused me of sleeping with the judge. On July 1, he took me to Chandigarh to consult a lawyer to frame the judge. When I objected, he threatened to kill my daughter,” she told TOI.
It is then that the couple approached the police where the woman revealed details during counselling.
Police commissioner Muhammad Akil said the man was a history-sheeter and wanted money to restart his work. He tortured his wife who he suspected was having an affair.
The woman, who has a daughter, told police that her husband forced her to abort their second child suspecting her character.
“She has recorded a statement stating that no one except her husband has ever raped her and the men were falsely implicated,” Akil told HT.
Following the 22-year-old woman’s complaint, the police registered a case against Hzar Khan for extortion, unnatural sex, fabrication of evidence and criminal intimidation. The man, meanwhile, was remanded to one-day police custody.
Prasanta Patnaik