Forced to withdraw complaint, subjected to banned test, alleges sexually assaulted IAF officer

Team Udayavani, Sep 30, 2021, 4:57 PM IST

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A 28-year old female Air Force officer at the Air Force Administrative College here who was sexually assaulted, has levelled serious charges against the IAF authorities, including subjecting her to a banned finger test and also forcing her to withdraw the complaint against the accused Flight Lieutenant.

The charges found place in the FIR registered by the police based on the complaint by the woman officer at the All Woman Police Station, after the IAF authorities including College Commandant failed to take action till September 20 on the incident which happened on September 10.

The woman also alleged she was subjected to ‘two-finger test’ at the Air Force Hospital to ascertain rape, which was banned by the Supreme Court a few years ago. Police had arrested the accused Amitesh Harmukh on September 25 and he is in judicial custody.

Both the rape victim and the accused, hailing from Chhattisgarh, were part of a training course and had attended a party in the officers’ mess on the night of September 9. The woman officer in her complaint said the incident occurred in the wee hours of the next day when she was sleeping after taking medicine for her leg injury and was assaulted by the drunk officer, who had narrated the incident to two of her batchmates who recorded the conversation between the trio.

She approached a wing commander on the incident and came to the room along with a woman wing commander, who ‘advised’ her to think about the future including the name and respect of the family, based on which she communicated to one of her friends that she was not going to lodge any complaint.

However, as both the wing commanders again approached her and told her to either file the complaint or give in writing that the episode was consensual, she subsequently mustered courage and decided to file the complaint, amid the finger test in the evening in the hospital.

The victim further said she had handed over the mattress which had strains of semen to two women doctors, the FIR said. After cajoling by two senior officers, who informed that the test was negative, the commandant asked her to withdraw the case in writing saying if pursued, it will be flashed in the media and bring disrepute to the Air Force and herself, police said.

However, she went to the city police commissioner’s office on September 20 and from there the all-woman police station registered the case. When contacted, a senior IAF officer, on condition of anonymity, refused to comment on the issue as the matter was in court and sensitive.

Meanwhile, the IAF had filed a petition in the court that local police has no right to arrest the officer and only the defence court is the jurisdiction where a court-martial can be conducted and therefore hand over him the accused to the IAF.