A Wing Commander of the Indian Air Force (IAF), has been booked in a rape case by the Jammu and Kashmir Police following allegations of sexual assault levelled against him by a woman officer also posted at the same station.
Both the IAF officers are currently stationed at the Air Force Station in Srinagar. Following the complaint, the IAF said it is cooperating with the police, PTI reported.
A day after the complaint by the woman officer, the FIR under Section 376(2) of the IPC was filed at Budgam police station in central Kashmir on Sunday, the officials said.
“We are aware of the case. The Air Force Station in Srinagar was approached by the local Budgam police station on the subject. We are fully cooperating towards this case,” a senior IAF official said, PTI reported.
The woman officer has also alleged “continuous harassment, sexual assault, and mental torture” that she has been subjected to over the last two years, primarily by authorities at the Air Force Station, Srinagar, Indian Express reported.
In her complaint, which is part of the FIR, the woman officer alleged that she was forced to perform a sexual act on him after the New Year’s Party held at the Officers’ Mess on December 31, 2023.
She has alleged that the sexual assault took place in a room at around 2 am on January 1 after the Wing Commander asked her to come to a room to receive a New Year gift.
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The woman said when she went along with him to his room, his family was not there, and upon inquiring, he replied that they were someplace else. She further alleged that her senior forced her into oral sex and molested her.
“I repeatedly asked him to stop doing it and tried to resist it in all ways possible. Finally, I pushed him and ran away,” she said.
“I went into a mental shock being new to the atmosphere in forces. I was embarrassed and broken to the extent that I lacked the courage to report. I can’t describe the mental agony of being an unmarried girl who joined the forces and was treated in such a heinous manner,” she said, PTI reported.
The IAF officer said that she was in a “dilemma of whether to discuss or be quiet. Finally I took a call and decided to fight”. After her complaint, she said, a Colonel-rank officer was ordered to investigate the incident.
“The Wing Commander was made to sit with me on January 29 and 30. He noted down my statement and examination,” she said, adding, she objected to his presence and then the investigation was “closed to hide mistakes of the administration”.
The officer has accused senior IAF officers of the station of not taking her complaint seriously.
“It took two months for Station to assemble an Internal Committee (IC)… on April 2, 2024, Internal Committee assembled. The bias of Station authorities to aid the sexual offender was very heartbreaking for me… Medical examination was not done till the time I insisted multiple times. It was done on the last day of the investigation by the Internal Committee,” her complaint stated.
According to the complainant, she urged the Internal Committee to summon a witness who had been made to “run away” from the camp area before giving his statement. But the Internal Committee, her complaint stated, did not do so despite being provided “all facts and bringing out lies and contradictions” of the “tutored witnesses”.
According to the complainant, the committee later said it is “inconclusive that the incident happened or not” because of “lack of eyewitness”. The investigation, she said, ended on May 15 and “till date no action has been taken on anyone and no intimation has been given to me”.
The woman officer has complained of “continuous mental harassment” and “social boycott”. “My personal communications have been constantly monitored unofficially. The individuals I speak with are harassed by the authorities,” she alleged, requesting the police initiate appropriate legal action against the perpetrators.
The woman officer alleged that she was forced to approach the J&K Police to lodge an FIR after finding that no action was being taken by the IAF authorities.
(With inputs from PTI)