GHAZIABAD: The entire staff of the women’s police station in the city has been booked for allegedly slipping an allegation of miscarriage into a complaint originally filed by a woman against her husband for cruelty and dowry harassment.
Based on this complaint, an additional section of the IPC was invoked in the FIR.
The police station located in Lohia Nagar has around 20-25 staff members. They have been accused of cheating and criminal conspiracy by tampering with the complaint document along with the woman who made the allegations against her husband.
In March this year, the woman (in her 30s) reached out to the police station, alleging that her husband used to beat her for dowry. The station initially referred the case for family counselling, but the husband refused to attend the sessions by Neha Chauhan, according to the FIR that was registered this September.
Police said on Tuesday that the husband was supposed to be booked under sections 498A (husband subjecting woman to cruelty), 504 (intentional insult), 506 (criminal intimidation), 323 (causing hurt), 342 (wrongful confinement) of the IPC and relevant provisions of the Dowry Prohibition Act on the recommendation of the counselor. But the FIR had another IPC section – 312, for voluntarily causing a woman with child to miscarry – that wasn’t recommended by Chauhan, investigators said.
“The woman did not say anything about abortion in her complaint or during counselling. The husband got to know after he filed an RTI in late October. He also contacted Neha Chauhan (the counselor) who filed a complaint against the woman and the whole staff of the women’s police station,” the FIR read.
The station’s SHO Kiran Raj told TOI that cops had asked the woman who had filed the dowry case to come for questioning. “But she refused to come, and after that the counsellor asked a senior police officer to take action this month,” the SHO said.
“If any staff member of the police station is involved in the fraud, then action will be taken against him or her," Raj added. When asked, ACP Alok Dubey said initial investigation indicates the complaint, which was two pages long, had been tampered with. “The second page was changed, and the section for child miscarriage was mentioned against the husband,” Dubey said.
The complainant and staff of the police station have been booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant) and 120B (criminal conspiracy). “Investigation is under way,” Dubey said.
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