It gets knotty when they don't tie the knot
GURGAON: The city is witnessing the emergence of a trend in intimacy with eight live-in relationships ending in rape complaints in the last three months. These eight rape cases are a sizeable percentage of the total 37 cases in the past six months.
Attention has once again been drawn to the security, legality and the apparent misuse of this much-professed institution of convenience. Gurgaon police arrest the accused without fail but a majority of the cases do not fit into the conventional bracket of rape.
On June 11 a woman, who worked as a software engineer in a Gurgaon-based company, accused her live-in partner of raping her for two and a half years on the pretext of marrying her. The victim was previously married to another man but left him to be with the accused and has a nine-month-old child from the relationship. Sector 40 police lodged an FIR and arrested the accused, who was later sent in judicial custody.
In another case, a 57-year-old CEO of a tour operator company was arrested by city police for allegedly raping his live-in partner. She accused her partner of raping her for six years on the pretext of marriage. The complainant, a 42-year-old owner of a spa-cum-salon in the city, had alleged that the CEO had shown her a fake divorce certificate to lure her. The accused, who was sent in judicial custody, was granted bail after some days.
Unlike in other rape cases, the live-in partners accused of rape are usually out on bail soon.
"In many cases you find that the couples have been living together for almost a decade and one fine day the female partner wakes up and alleges rape. In many cases we do see that it's a frame-up but our hands are tied," a senior police officer told TOI on condition of anonymity.
When contacted, Alok Mittal, police commissioner, said, "If any complainant comes with a complaint of rape to us, we immediately lodge an FIR and arrest the accused. We present our investigation report in court and the court decides on the veracity of the allegations.
"It may be a new trend in live-in relationships, but on our part, we never delay lodging the FIR and arresting the accused. We do not sit in judgment on the allegation and do not make any subjective observation," the police commissioner said.
There were a couple of recent cases of fatality in live-in relationships that did not fit into the 'rape' trend. A Delhi Police inspector of the Special Cell (encounter specialist) and his live-in partner were found shot dead in suspicious circumstances at the woman's home in Ardee City in May. Earlier, a 24-year-old woman in a live-in relationship in rented accommodation near Sector 44 had committed suicide on April 14 by consuming a poisonous substance.
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