BHOPAL: Unimaginable savagery with a 45-year-old tribal woman by two tribal male neighbours has been reported from Khalwa area of southwestern Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa district.
The mother of two young sons was allegedly gang-raped by two men (both neighbours) aged between 30 and 38 years. She was subsequently subjected to further torture, as one of the accused kicked with force on her lower abdomen, causing severe injury to the private parts, profuse bleeding and resultant death a few hours later.
Both the accused, who hail from the same Korku tribe to which the woman also belonged to, have been arrested and booked for murder and gang rape.
Importantly, the woman and the accused were neighbours and knew each other very well.
According to sources associated with the ongoing police probe, the woman went with her neighbour Hari Palvi to a marriage in the village on Friday evening. She and Hari along with another woman returned from the marriage late at night.
While the other woman went to her home, the middle-aged woman, who was the mother of two sons (aged 20 and 22 years) went with Hari to his house, where they were joined by another man, Sunil Korku.
Primary investigations suggest that the trio, including the woman and the two male neighbors consumed liquor, after which the savagery happened with the woman at her neighbour’s house on Friday-Saturday intervening night.
On Saturday morning, the woman’s two sons found their mother in serious condition near the neighbour’s house and took her home. Neither the two sons nor villagers reported the incident to the police. The woman died at around 2 pm due to severe internal injuries, after which the police came to know about it.
“Our teams arrested both the accused on coming to know about the ghastly incident. The duo has been booked under BNS Sections related to gang-rape and murder. Had the incident been reported to us in the morning itself, the woman’s life could well have been saved due to timely medical intervention, particularly as we now even have helicopter support to fly patients to the best hospitals,” inspector general of police (IG-Indore Rural Zone) Anurag told TNIE on Sunday.
According to the police sources, the two accused were so heavily drunk that even the cops had to wait for several hours to question them.
The opposition Congress hit out at the state government in the wake of the savagery with the tribal woman by two fellow tribal men. “In Mohan Raj (Dr Mohan Yadav’s rule) in MP, the women’s safety seems to be over! The brutality done to a woman in the tribal area of Khandwa district is spine-chilling! The CM does your home minister (the CM is the home minister also) have some shame left or not? Despite so many incidents, the government has neither any sympathy nor the courage to rein in criminals!” the MP Congress said in its official statement on X.