CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Police today booked its Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Randhir Singh Uppal, on charges of rape and sexual harassment, for allegedly harassing a law student.
Confirming that a case in this regard has been registered against Uppal, Additional Deputy Coner of Police of Amritsar Lakhbir Singh said, "A case has been registered at Cantonment police station in this connection and further investigations are underway.''
The case has been registered after an inquiry was conducted by IGP (Crime) Vibhu Raj as a student of a law college in Amritsar in her complaint had alleged that the AIG (Crime), Randhir Singh Uppal posted in Chandigarh had been harassing her and making sexual advances for the past four months.
Amritsar police commissioner SS Srivastava had earlier requested the Punjab DGP Suresh Arora to shift the probe to a senior woman police officer as the victim hailed from Hoshiarpur and the accused was posted in Chandigarh. The inquiry was then marked to IGP (Crime) Vibhu Raj.
It is learnt that during a high-level meeting of senior police officials from all over Punjab in Chandigarh on Thursday, the DGP had asked the police commissioner to register a case in this regard. Sources said that Uppal had been sending the victim WhatsApp messages and also sending her the location where she was on her phone. He was also calling her on WhatsApp video calls and harassing her. She with a help of friend recorded one of that video calls besides saving other messages and handed over the whole evidence to the police.
The complainant who is law student and mother of six-year-old had alleged that her repeated pleas had fallen on deaf ears as he was not ready to relent and Uppal threatened her. Meanwhile Uppal refuted the allegations as he said that he knew the girl's family and mother, and that her family urged him to keep a watch on her as she had fallen in a bad company. Admitting that he called her up he said that he used to call her up and ask her to mend her ways.