MUMBAI, Mar 4: The Maharashtra government has declared as “untrue” the claim that some policemen had forced some women to strip and dance in a women’s hostel in Jalgaon.
The issue had surfaced in the Maharashtra state Assembly on Wednesday after which the state government had formed a high powered committee to inquire into the matte and report within two days.
The home minister Anil Deshmukh told the House on Thursday that the committee had found the claim to be “untrue.” No policemen had entered the hostel nor any woman was stripped and made to dance. The committee also reported that the claim was made by a woman of unstable mind whose husband had complained of her mental conditions last month and got her hospitalised.
Deshmukh said the state government-appointed panel, “A six-member committee of senior women officers…a psychiatrist… visited the hostel, spoke to other residents of the hostel, took their statements, checked the register, and found the allegations as unfounded. No policemen entered the hostel premises as they do not have permission to do so because it is a women’s hostel,” Deshmukh told the state assembly.
It was also found that the complainant is mentally unstable, according to her husband, who has earlier requested that she be hospitalised, Deshmukh told the House.
Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker Shweta Mahale raised the matter in the assembly on Wednesday and demanded action. She said that a video of the incident had also surfaced.
The hostel is being run by the state women and child development department for destitute, mentally unstable women and sexual abuse survivors.
(Manas Dasgupta)