New Delhi: Police paraded a 35-year-old man on Wednesday, July 5 in Navsari district’s Khergam village for allegedly raping a 22-year-old woman to spread the message that “nobody was above law”, the Indian Express reported.Asim Shaikh, a resident of Khergam village, was arrested by the police on Wednesday, July 3 after the rape survivor filed a complaint at the Khergam police station on June 24. A local court had sent the accused to police remand till July 13, the report said.On Wednesday afternoon, the police paraded him for two kms while the locals were seen bursting firecrackers and showering flowers on the police for taking action.“The man has created terror in the entire village and everybody was scared of him. We paraded him in the market area of the village with an intention to send a message among the public that nobody is above law and those who are into criminal activities will be strictly dealt with. There are 18 different offences of quarrelling, bootlegging, etc, lodged against him,” District Local Crime Branch police inspector D.S. Korat told the Indian Express.Shoeb Shaikh, a local resident, told the Indian Express, “Asim Shaikh and his entire family members are infamous for terrorising the villagers. Everybody was scared of him, as a result of which, nobody used to complain against him. We appreciate the action taken by the Navsari police.”The woman’s complaint revealed that Shaikh used to “repeatedly chase her at different locations” in attempts to befriend her. After her consistent refusals, the accused showed up at her college in Vadodra in 2021 and threatened suicide if she rejected his marriage proposal, the report said.Later, the accused took her to his friend’s house in the city and raped her. He continued the physical relationship with her on the pretext of marriage. The survivor broke off her relationship once she learned that the accused was already married and returned to Khergam in 2022, leaving her education midway.However, Asim continued harassing the woman and shared videos of the two of them with the family of the man the girl was supposed to marry, the Indian Express reported. According to the FIR, when the survivor confronted him, he told her that marriage was not possible as it could lead to communal riots.To ease the communal tension, Asim asked her to get married to his friend Ronak Patel and then get divorced from him “so that they could get married”. As pressure from Asim continued even after she got married to Patel, the survivor finally approached the police accusing Asim of rape.The police have registered an FIR charging him under IPC Act Sections 376 (2) (n)(rape committed repeatedly on same woman), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult to provoke breach of trust) and 506(2) (punishment for criminal intimidation), the Indian Express reported.
