Tribal woman gang-raped in village

Hyderabad: Pahadishareef police on Sunday arrested five persons for the gang rape of a tribal woman and assaulting her husband, and also took another 9 persons, who took signatures forcibly from the victims, into custody.

The main accused of the gang rape are identified as M Prasanth Reddy (30), his brother M Anil Reddy (26), R Bharath (26) D Pavan Kumar (29) and C Hanmanthu (25). Police said efforts are going on to nab the absconding accused Chandrashekar Reddy.

According to police, the victim woman and her husband are the labourers and they belong to the ST community.

They came to Harshaguda for eking livelihood and four months back started working on a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 per month in the poultry farm of M Prasanth Reddy who took the farm on lease from J Balya Naik.

On September 18, the five accused persons came to poultry in their car and took victim woman and her husband to other poultry farm telling that due to recent rainfall the other farm was spoiled and had to be arranged properly.

On that the victim husband agreed and went along with his family to the poultry farm in Thukkuguda village. On reaching to the spot the accused confined the victim woman in a room and husband was kept outside and intoxicated both of them forcefully.

Then the accused persons came inside the room and they gang raped the victim. When she was shouting they beat her with sticks, pipes, rod and belts and also abused her in filthy language by her caste name.

Later, they also beat her husband and threatened to kill them if they disclose the matter to police. Meanwhile 9 other accused tried to settle the issue and asked the victims to forcibly compromise with the accused.

They asked the accused to pay an amount of Rs 2.5 lakh to the victims so that victim would not lodge a complaint against them.

Later after paying the amount the so called elders took victim and her husband to Harshaguda village and held panchayat to compromise and they took signatures forcibly and threatened them.

After paying the amount the so called elders took Rs 15,000 for their party celebrations. By registering a case under sections 376 (d), 342, 324, 506, 384, 109 r/w 149 IPC and 3(1) (e) and 3 (2) (v) SC ST POA Act 2015 and under sections 365, 342, 330, 355, 384, 506 109 r/w 149 IPC and section 3 (2) (v) SC ST POA Act 2015, police arrested the accused.