On HC orders, man held for sexual abuse

Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service
Faridkot, April 4

Six months after the Faridkot administration recovered Rs 90 lakh from the convict in a seven-year-old rape case and paid the amount to the victim and her family as compensation, the girl’s father was on Thursday arrested on the charge of rape. He has been accused of raping a 29-year-old woman here.

A criminal case under Section 376 was registered against Ashwani Kumar Sachdeva in September 2018 on the directions of Punjab and Haryana High Court. Earlier, in 2012, Sachdeva’s minor daughter was abducted and raped by a gangster and this incident had led to massive protests and uproar in Faridkot. In that case, the gangster was sentenced to life imprisonment and the High Court had directed the district administration to compensate the victim family with Rs 90 lakh last year.

As per the High Court orders, the Faridkot district administration had attached the agricultural and residential properties of gangster Nishan Singh and his mother Navjot Kaur and recovered Rs 90 lakh to compensate the victim family.

However, days after the payment of this compensation, the victim family’s head was in the dock when a woman accused him of raping her. As the Faridkot police were hesitant to take action on the woman’s complaint, the latter approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking a criminal case against Sachdeva.

The complainant had accused him of sexually exploiting her on the pretext of getting her a government job. In her petition, the woman had alleged that the police were not taking any action against him as “he is close to Congress leaders”.

On the directions of the High Court, the police had registered a criminal case against Ashwani Sachdeva on September 27, 2018, but in the last over six months, he was not arrested fearing public backlash. After arresting Sachdeva on Thursday, the police produced him before the chief judicial magistrate, who sent him to 14-day judicial custody.

The Faridkot police had earlier formed a special investigation team (SIT), led by a SP-rank woman officer, to probe the case.

Members of various social organisations, which had helped the family in 2012, claimed that the girl’s father was being entangled in a false case at the instance of Nishan Singh, the accused in the 2012 rape case.

“Though Nishan Singh is lodged in jail after he was awarded life term in the rape case, he has been intimidating and harassing the family from behind the bars,” said members of the action committee, which had led a long struggle for justice to the rape victim in 2012.