Cop offered cricket match tickets, said don't complain: B'luru sexual assault victim, probe on

It has happened to many women, and when cops dissuade some women do drop complaint says activists.
Cop offered cricket match tickets, said don't complain: B'luru sexual assault victim, probe on
Cop offered cricket match tickets, said don't complain: B'luru sexual assault victim, probe on
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Soon after midnight on March 5th, a young woman woke up to find a man armed with a knife standing in her room. He threatened to rape her at knife point and she somehow managed to escape, with just a few cuts on her hand.


The man who had entered Smitha’s paying guest accommodation in HAL was Shivarama Reddy, a repeat offender. On March 2, an FIR had been filed in the HAL Police Station against the same man for raping another woman.

According to Smitha, when she went to file a complaint, the Inspector, Sadiq Pasha dissuaded her from doing so. Pasha has however denied the allegation.

Shocked by the experience, the girl wrote a complaint to the Bengaluru Police Commissioner detailing the trauma she underwent at the hands of the police.

DCP Whitefield, Narayana has been appointed to investigate the allegations made against Inspector Pasha.

According to DCP Whitefield, Narayana, the incident would be probed thoroughly. “There may be many reasons why the police would have questioned the girl multiple times. The Inspector managed to catch him within two days’ time. We will have to question the girl, her friends and also take the inspector’s version before concluding,” Narayana said.

Smitha’s version

According to Smitha*, she narrated the incident to a sub inspector, after which he told her to give him a hand-written complaint. He later told her that the Inspector, Sadiq Pasha was busy and told her to speak to Pasha’s PA.

The girl narrated her story to Pasha’s PA and after this she met the inspector in his car. “Even before asking any other detail, Sadiq Pasha took out a photograph and showed me the attacker’s photo. I was taken aback. He confidently showed me only one photograph, not two or three of them. I identified him instantly. I was then informed that it was a two-year-old photograph and that this guy is a ‘psycho’ and a repeat offender,” Smitha told TNM.

Pasha then told Smitha to meet him at a café, where he allegedly told her to not file a complaint, saying that it would be bad for her image.

Pasha allegedly gave two of Smitha’s friends tickets to the cricket match, which was held in Bengaluru. Her friends, however, returned the tickets.

Pasha again told her to meet him at Dunkin Doughnuts and asked her to give him a letter saying she did not want to file a complaint. Pasha also told her that she could file a complaint if she “wanted to become famous”.

Subsequently, an FIR was registered against an unknown person although Pasha knew the offender’s name.

TNM contacted Sadiq Pasha on March 5, when one of the girl’s friends had put up a post on Twitter. Pasha had denied the occurrence of such an incident in his police station limits.

On Wednesday, when TNM contacted him again, he said, “There was a complaint that was filed, but I did not tell you about it as it would interfere with the investigation. There was another rape complaint filed two days before this incident and it was the same accused,” Pasha said.

Initially, the police had only registered a theft complaint, which is registered by the PG owner Rajashekhar Reddy and only later, up on the girl’s insistence was a sexual assault complaint filed.

Police version

ACP Hemanth Nimbalkar, however, said that Smitha did not want initially file a complaint of sexual assault and later changed her mind.

“Initially she did not tell the police about the sexual assault, later she wanted to change the complaint and why would Pasha not file a complaint when she wanted to? Just two days ago, another case of sexual assault was registered against the same man in HAL Police Station itself. The girl changed her mind and only after that a complaint was filed,” Nimbalkar said.

Nimbalkar and Pasha pointed out that Reddy had been caught on March 6. “He attacked us. We had to shoot him on his leg. He was arrested. We took such a risk to catch him,” Pasha said.

According to social activist Brinda Adige, such instances occur regularly and that it is a systematic way of suppressing sexual assault cases.

“The police repeatedly try to dissuade victims to not file complaint. The police do not want their image to be tarnished and resort to such tricks and this is not the first time. It has happened to many women before. In this instance, the girl was adamant but in most others, the survivors begin to question their actions when a police officer advises them against filing a complaint. Action must be taken against such law enforcement officers,” Adige said.

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