- Friday, April 19, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA is in the headlines yet again for case involving a crime against women and this time, none other than the Indian Air Force (IAF) has found itself dragged into the controversy.
A few days ago, the alleged rape of a woman at the Airforce Administrative College in Redfields, Coimbatore, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu came to light and a flight lieutenant was arrested and sent to judicial custody on September 26.
The first-information report (FIR) filed in the case also brought serious allegations against the IAF, from subjecting the survivor to the banned two-finger test during a medical examination to intimidating her and discouraging her from lodging an official complaint about the incident.
India’s The News Minute news outlet, which accessed the FIR which has a detailed description of the happenings of September 10 when the alleged sexual assault took place. According to the complainant, she sustained injury on the evening of the previous day (9) and was given a painkiller. Later in the evening. She went to the Officer’s Mess bar along with her course mates and had two drinks. The accused had allegedly insisted on paying for one of them.
The woman started feeling sick thereafter and two of her peers took her to room and put her to bed. Eventually, the accused allegedly came to her room and tried to wake her up but she told him to leave, telling him that he wanted to sleep, according to the complaint.
It was alleged that the survivor was woken up the next day by one of her friends who had helped to put her to bed and the friend asked her why the accused was inside her room and whether he was there consensually. The friend suspected that the accused had sexually assaulted the survivor based on what he saw. The survivor then witnessed some physical evidence and confronted the accused saying what he had done was completely wrong. He then allegedly apologised for invading her privacy and said she could take “any action against him” if she wanted.
When the complainant and her friend approached seniors over the issue, she was initially discouraged, according to The News Minute report. One of the women wing commanders told the survivor to think about her family’s reputation and fearing that her name would get leaked, she decided to move forward with the complaint.
The next day, as the report said, the survivor and her friend was called by two officers who they told about the incident and they were allegedly given two choices – either she filed a complaint or gave in writing that it was consensual sex. The survivor then decided to file the complaint and following that, was asked to go to the hospital for a medical test.
There, the survivor allegedly had more trauma waiting. When she and her friend reached the Air Force Hospital, they were allegedly met by two officials and both were “confused” about how to go about it.
According to the survivor, apart from taking vaginal swabs, the medical officer also made her undergo the banned two-finger test. She said in her complaint that it was only later that she came to learn that the two-finger test is not supposed to be done during a rape exam and added that it made her go through the trauma of sexual assault again.
The two-finger test was banned by the Supreme Court of India eight years ago and yet there are reports of it continuing in many parts.
A year after the horrific Nirbhaya gangrape and murder incident, India saw changes in its rape laws and subjecting a survivor of sexual assault is banned since then.
The survivor in the case in Tamil Nadu also alleged in this respect that she was asked about her sexual history, which is also illegal.
The officer was also traumatised to see the accused coming to classes every day prior to his arrest and even allegedly telling people what he had done. As per the FIR, the survivor got no legal guidance and she alleged that she was “blackmailed” to either file a complaint or trust the system. She said she was even asked several times to give in writing withdrawal of the complaint statements. Even her statement was allegedly changed and she was asked to sign it.
