Woman molested over husband’s RTI plea

VADODARA: A married woman in

Sansrod village

of

Karjan taluka

was allegedly molested by four persons on August 23 at her residence as her husband had filed a Right to Information (

RTI

) application against a trust-run high school to get details of its financial status.

Based on the woman’s complaint at Karjan police station on Friday, police booked Maqbool Saleh, Ayub Bawla, Altaf Saleh and Saeed Turi, all residents of Sansrod under Indian Penal Code section 354B (assault or use of criminal force on woman with intent to disrobe) and 506 (criminal intimidation).

The accused went to the woman’s house on August 23 morning. The woman told the police in her complaint that the accused threatened to kill her daughter if her husband did not withdraw the RTI application. She alleged that the accused then held her hands and tried to pull her clothes.

As she shouted for help, a villager passing by her house came to her rescue, she told the police. Talking to TOI, the woman said that the village panchayat had given land to the trust for the high school so that the children of Sansrod and other villages can study there. “But, since past several years, the trustees have been indulging in financial irregularities therefore my husband had sought their account statements to know the truth,” she said. But, instead of giving details she and her husband are being threatened with their lives, she alleged.

Police said that before the accused went to the woman’s house, they threatened her husband when he was waiting for a bus for Surat in the village.