Bhopal: Woman raped, blackmailed by ‘friend’

BHOPAL: A 35-year-old married woman was allegedly raped by her ‘childhood friend’ for nine years in Hanumanganj locality. Hanumanganj police acting on the complaint filed by the survivor on Monday, registered a rape case against the accused and started the investigation.
SHO Mahendra Singh Thakur said, the survivor stated in her complaint that, the accused who was her former neighbour and childhood friend, outraged her modesty at a lounge in 2011.When she protested after the incident, the accused threatened the survivor that he had recorded the phone conversations exchanged between them before her marriage and threatened to defame her, if she dared to reveal it to anyone.
The terrified woman kept mum due to social defamation and since then the accused was repeatedly raping her at different places, said the SHO. “The woman alleged that fed up of routine harassment, she somehow mustered courage and approached the cops to lodge a complaint against her childhood friend,” said Thakur, adding that a case of rape was registered against accused under relevant sections of IPC and further investigations are underway to nab him.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)