Days after an air force officer was arrested for allegedly raping a fellow woman officer at a training academy, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has been allowed to proceed with the court martial of the flight lieutenant. The court allowed the air force to proceed against its officer, in the wake of a jurisdictional tug of war between the IAF and the Tamil Nadu Police.
The IAF had recently moved a court in Coimbatore to allow a court martial against the flight lieutenant seeing that he was a serving officer. The air force had requested the TN police not to lodge him in jail.
The air force officer was arrested by an all-women team of Tamil Nadu Police on September 26, after the woman lodged a complaint. The accused, who hails from Chhattisgarh’s Durg district, committed the crime when he was at the training academy to take part in an induction programme.
The court order has comes at a time when the matter is gaining much traction in the media after the complainant claimed that she was subjected to the “two-finger test”, which is a preliminary, unscientific examination of rape survivors to ascertain sexual abuse. The woman also said the attitude of some officers, who were made aware of the sexual assault, was to force her into withdrawing the complaint.
In her complaint, reproduced in the FIR registered by Coimbatore police, the woman says she was raped at her quarters by the flight lieutenant on September 9. According to the FIR, reviewed by CNN-News18, the woman had been at the receiving end of gaslighting by a few officers to whose notice the incident had been brought. “I was feeling sick, my trauma intensified by the authorities’ attitude and knowing the fact that my rapist was going to walk free. I had a panic attack around 02 30 hrs and had to be taken to the AFH. I was administered pills as I could not sleep and was having great trouble breathing. I was given a day’s rest…”
In the FIR, the woman has also alleged that senior officers, including those in charge of administering medical treatment to her, had pressurised her to withdraw her complaint, and made changes to the letters that she had submitted, detailing her trauma.
She also alleged that the institute’s authorities attempted to “tamper with the evidence” she provided against the perpetrator and their “callous attitude” forced her to lodge a complaint with the civil police.
The woman’s allegations has also prompted National Commission for Women (NCW) in New Delhi to write to IAF, raising strong objections to the woman officer being subjected to “banned and intrusive two-finger test”. The NCW has asked the air chief marshal to take necessary steps.
“The National Commission for Women is utterly disappointed and strongly condemns the action of Indian Air Force doctors conducting the banned two-finger test on the victim, thereby violating the Supreme Court’s decision and also violating the right to privacy and dignity of the victim,” the commission said reacting to a media report.
(With PTI inputs)
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