RailEnquiry

Loading..

Cop shunted over assault on gay commuter Cops assaulted gay commuter: GRP by nikhilndls on 03 March, 2013 - 08:00 PM
avatar nikhilndls Cop shunted over assault on gay commuter Cops assaulted gay commuter: GRP on 03 March, 2013 - 08:00 PM

MUMBAI: A week after a 28-year-old gay commuter was assaulted in a lavatory at Vasai station, a Government Railway Police (GRP) probe has established that his assailants were cops.


The victim claimed the plain-clothes policemen, Ravi Medge and Sandeep Waghchaure, extorted Rs 25,000 from him.

The accused -duo, Ravi Medge and Sandeep Waghchaure, are constables attached to the Vasai GRP outpost. A case of extortion has been registered against the policemen who are yet to be traced. Their superior and in-charge of the Vasai GRP outpost, Praful Kshirsagar, has been shunted to the control room for not acting immediately and failing to initiate a probe. The victim, a pharma firm employee from Vasai, was travelling home late on February 22. He boarded a Virar-bound local from Dadar station around 10.45pm and reached Vasai an hour later.

He then went to a lavatory on platform 2 to relieve himself where two men accosted him. They taunted him over his homosexuality and thrashed him. Later they took the victim to an ATM outside the station and forced him to withdraw Rs 25,000 in cash. The victim did as he was told, withdrawing the amount in three transactions.

The two then bundled him into an autorickshaw and asked him to go home, warning him to keep mum about the incident.
The next day, the victim got himself admitted to a hospital as he had been bleeding. The hospital informed the cops. Despite the victim categorically stating that his assailants were plain-clothes policemen, no complaint was lodged. Finally on February 25, an FIR was registered against unknown persons by the Vasai GRP.

"We are probing if Medge and Waghchavre were accompanied by a non-policeman during the incident.

The suspension orders of Medge and Waghchaure have already been issued," a top GRP official said. Medge and Waghchavre have been attached to the Vasai GRP outpost for two years. They have been booked under sections 341, 384 and 506 of IPC.

The incident had sparked shockwaves amongst the gay community in the city. Gay rights activists said that instances of extortion by the railway police are rampant.