An engineering student was allegedly kidnapped and raped at gunpoint by an unidentified person in Panchkula on Tuesday night.
The 21-year-old woman’s ordeal began when she came to the city’s Sector 20 market with a male friend in her Hyundai i-20 car earlier that evening. They were on their way to a friend’s party in Chandigarh.
The woman told police that her male friend had gone to purchase some items from a Patanjali store at the market, leaving her in the car’s front passenger seat. That was when an unidentified man – aged between 30 and 35 years – came to the window and pointed a revolver at her.
The man allegedly warned the victim against sounding the alarm because he would not hesitate to kill her, just as he had murdered a policeman a while ago. The man then shuffled into the driver’s seat and drove away, taking the woman with him.
Even as she was being driven through sectors 21, 25 and 26 of Panchkula, the woman’s friend called from the market. The kidnapper forced her to say that she was heading to an aunt’s place because the latter had developed a medical emergency.
Police said the man allegedly made the woman strip and sit in the car’s boot, so she wouldn’t run away. He also bought liquor from a shop along the way, and made her drink it.
Later, the man stopped the car at a secluded spot and allegedly raped her. Then he hired an autorickshaw and paid its driver Rs 150 to drop her off at Zirakpur.
Police said the man fled with the woman’s car, mobile phone and other valuables. After the victim had reached home, she came with her male friend to the Panchkula police station and lodged a complaint.
“We are hunting for the culprit. A case has been registered under sections 376 (rape), 365 (kidnapping) and 394 (voluntarily causing hurt while committing a robbery) of the Indian Penal Code,” said inspector Manjit Kaur, SHO of the women’s police station.
Source: HindustanTimes