A farm owner in Ajnar area of Kutch district of Gujarat has allegedly raped a 22-year-old laborer working in his farm. The accused identified as Rannchhod Ahir has now been arrested after a zero FIR was registered against him at a police station in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.
The victim is a tribal migrant agriculture labour from Dahod. Ahir allegedly raped the woman multiple at a hut in his farm on September 16.
According to a report in Indian Express, the FIR against the accused was filed at Sabarmati police station in Ahmedabad under Section 376 (2) (repeated rape), 354 A for sexual harassment, 506 (criminal intimidation), and other relevant sections Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities act).
The rape complaint was filed after workers’ organisation ‘Mazdur Adhikar Manch’ took up the matter and helped the victim in filing the FIR.
Police said the survivor and her husband came to Ajnar taluka of Kutch to work as farm labourers in December 2019.
The couple and along with their two other relatives started working in Ahir’s farm on May 25 after the lockdown. They all were living in the makeshift huts on the farmland.
“On September 16 evening, my husband had gone to the village to run some errands and had handed over his cellphone to me. Rannchhod called on the phone around 6 pm, asking for my husband to get some work done. I told him that I was alone in the house and that the work would be done after my husband returns. After some time, Rannchhod arrived at my hut with some milk saying he wanted to give it to us. Then he forced himself on me and raped me twice. He then threatened to kill my husband if I revealed it to anyone,” the report quoted from the victim’s complaint to police.
The woman said she later told her husband about Ahir’s crime. Next morning, the couple reached Ajnar bus stand and bought the tickets to their home in Dahod after selling their mobile phone for Rs 1,500. Later, Mazdur Adhikar Manch helped the couple lodge an FIR against the accused.
