By IANS
Akola (Maharashtra) : The Maharashtra government Tuesday launched a probe after an 18-year-old girl accused senior government officers here of sexually exploiting her and many others. She also met Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil and narrated her travails.
Special Inspector General of Police Subodh Kumar Jaiswal, who recorded the college student’s statement Monday, was present when the girl accompanied by a friend met Patil, who holds the home portfolio, at Amravati, about 150 km from here.
While announcing a high-level state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) probe, Patil told reporters in Amravati Monday that he was willing to hear out the girl if she so desired.
Confirming that the girl called on the Patil and was sent back home in Akola, Jaiswal told IANS that the probe has begun and would be carried out in Akola.
The girl said in an affidavit, a copy of which was sent to local Marathi daily Deshonnati, that Nitu Takvat, who allegedly ran the sex racket, had after trapping her into it forced her to entertain many highly placed officers in the police and other government departments besides other influential people.
The girl stated in her affidavit that many girls like her are being exploited in the racket. Deshonnati Akola resident editor Shriman Mane told IANS that five girls have already approached the newspaper willing to relate their plight on sworn affidavits.
In her affidavit, the girl has accused District Superintendent of Police Deepak Pandey, Deputy Municipal Commissioner Mohan Nagalkar, Special Government Prosecutor Ganesh Pathak and Police Inspector Sanjay Pardesi as well as other influential people of sexual exploitation.
Akola district is located in the Amravati Division of Maharashtra and is about 800 km from state capital Mumbai.
Though the girl told reporters late Sunday night that she had implicated the superintendent of police under pressure from a police official, Patil said the CID would investigate whether the girl exonerated Pandey under duress.
Denying his involvement, Pandey told the press that the police were aware of the sex racket and that they were just about to expose it after over a month-long investigation.
In her affidavit, the girl said a mobile phone shop owner, Jagdish Sharm, took her to Nitu Takvat’s flat on the pretext of giving her a job. At Nitu’s residence she was offered tea laced with a sedative and her nude pictures were snapped in a state of unconsciousness, she said.
She added that Nitu forced her to satisfy the lust of several men, including those she has named in the affidavit, and many others whom she could recognise only by face.
Denying the girl’s allegations, Nitu told the press Monday that a reporter from the newspaper along with the girl’s boyfriend and two others had tried to pressurise her to extract money from Pandey for hushing up the matter.
Shriman Mane, however, told IANS that Nitu could not even recognise the reporter who she said approached her for bribe, either by name or by face when he was introduced to her by another name in the newspaper office last week.
Nitu admitted both to the media and in her affidavit that she knew Pandey and others named by the girl in connection with his property deals.
Meanwhile, state women’s commission chairperson Rajni Satav talked to Director General of Police P.S. Pasricha by phone from Nanded and sought a report on the case.
Several women activists, including commission member Yashomati Thakur, called on Patil, Jaiswal and Divisional Commissioner Bhaskar Munde to request them that the Akola police be kept out of the investigation as the girl had pointed fingers at some of them.
A delegation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) women’s wing met Jaiswal in Amravati Monday, demanding thorough and expeditious probe.