Woman gets husband arrested for raping visually impaired daughter

03.09.2016, Nagpur: A 50-year-old woman helped put her husband behind bars on Thursday after she came to know that he had raped their 20-year-old visually and hearing-impaired daughter at their Sakkardara residence. The girl had earlier been raped by her elder brother too, but she had never disclosed the matter until now. The elder brother committed suicide under a train four years ago.

The rape survivor Neha (name changed) was alone at house with her father Krishna. She was listening to her favourite programme on radio when the incident took place. Krishna, a former trucker, mostly stayed at home and used to consume liquor. The rape survivor was hearing-impaired, so she generally listened to radio programmes at very loud volume. Krishna took advantage of the radio's high volume to drown out the noise of his misdeed and any resistance by his daughter.

Neha did not realize what was happening when Krishna dragged her to a room by the hand, and forced himself upon her. Her mother Neeta, a tailor, was at work along with the younger son, who is also physically challenged and runs a pan shop, when the incident took place.

The rape by the father came to fore when Neha revealed her plight to a neighbour. The neighbour had come to take Neha to a shrine to attend a programme organized by an NGO. Neha narrated the incident to the neighbour while travelling in the autorickshaw. The shocked neighbour immediately alerted Neha's mother. Neeta also spoke to her daughter and told the neighbour to bring her daughter to the police station. Neha later disclosed to her mother that her late elder brother too had done the same thing to her a few years back.

The mother immediately filed a police complaint at Sakkardara police station. Talking to TOI, she said that she did not waste any time in ensuring that the cops arrested her husband. "Such exploitation can take place elsewhere too, if we do not take a stand against it. Today, it was her father. Tomorrow, it could have been someone else too," she said.

Woman sub-inspector CK Mesre of Sakkardara police station said the accused has been remanded to police custody till September 4. "We have already conducted the medical examination of the rape survivor," she said.