BJP Lawmaker Accused of Rape in Arunachal Pradesh
ITANAGAR (ARUNACHAL PRADESH): A woman doctor has accused a BJP MLA of raping her at a hotel in Arunachal Pradesh’s Itanagar, and then threatening her with dire consequences if she breathed a word about her ordeal to anybody.
Goruk Pordung won his first Assembly election earlier this year during the simultaneous polls that took place for the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assembly from the Bameng Assembly Constituency, defeating incumbent, Kumar Waii who had joined the National Peoples Party after he was denied a BJP ticket.
Police said that the alleged rape happened on the night of October 12 in a city hotel here. A FIR was filed by a 30-year-old married doctor on October 13. The victim in her complaint claimed that Pordung called her to the hotel on the pretext of discussing issues relating to the government primary health centre in his home constituency. She told the police that she went to meet him since he was a MLA and hence responsible. But instead she was allegedly raped. She added that Pordung was alone and had security personnel with him.
Itanagar police have filed a case against Guruk Pordung, MLA from Bameng assembly constituency, on a complaint from the woman. The politician, in turn, filed a counter-complaint claiming that the woman had come to the hotel on her own accord to indulge in consensual sex with him.
According to the complaint, Guruk Pordung – a close aide of Chief Minister Pema Khandu and Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju – had summoned the woman doctor to the hotel to discuss work related to a primary health centre in Bameng on Saturday evening. However, upon entering the politician’s room, he allegedly raped her.
The politician let the woman doctor go only after threatening her with dire consequences if she dared tell anybody about the sexual assault, the complaint added. The MLA responded by denying the rape charges, and terming the police complaint as a “conspiracy” to tarnish his image. Identifying the woman as the wife of a “close supporter”, he claimed that it was she who had “seduced” him in one of their past interactions.
Police said they have registered a case and launched a preliminary investigation into the matter. “It took a while to register the case. There were a few points that needed to be investigated, especially since the victim had admitted to going to the hotel on her own,” said Itanagar Superintendent of Police Tumme Amo, adding that they are probing both the complaints simultaneously.
The MLA had neither been questioned nor detained at the time of filing this report, and there was no word on the matter from the state BJP either. Guruk Pordung had defeated former Arunachal Pradesh Home Minister Kumar Waii from Bameng in the previous assembly polls.
(With Agency Inputs ).
