After ex Haryana DGP S.P.S. Rathore, another former top state policeman has been booked for allegedly molesting and intimidating a woman lawyer eight years back when he was superintendent of police here.
“We have registered a case against former Inspector General of Police M. S. Ahlawat on the directions of the state headquarters. A SIT has been formed to conduct the probe,” Yamunanagar’s Superintendent of Police, Sibash Kabiraj said today.
The case was registered yesterday under sections 354 (criminal force on woman with intent to outrage modesty), 323 (assault with intent to voluntarily cause hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC against Ahlawat, who retired last year, he said.
He said a team comprising DSP Headquarters and the Yamunanagar SHO has been constituted to investigate the matter. It would submit its report soon, he said.
A Yamunanagar based lawyer had lodged a complaint with the police charging Ahlawat with sexually harassing her when he was the Yamunanagar SP in 2002.
The lawyer had recently met Haryana DGP Ranjiv Singh Dalal at Panchkula. She claimed to have come into Ahlawat’s contact when she had approached the Yamunanagar police in May 2002 to lodge a case of dowry harassment against her husband.
The lawyer alleged that Ahlawat had insisted on meeting her in his camp office and allegedly tried to establish illicit relations with her.
After police initially showed their reluctance in registering the case against Ahlawat, the victim sat on a dharna in front of DGP’s office at Panchkula.
Ahlawat could not be reached despite repeated attempts.
The lawyer said Rathore was the DGP of Haryana and Ahlawat was a SP when she was allegedly molested by the latter. “If Rathore was not in office then, Ahlawat would not have dared to do such a thing. Ahlawat would not have had the guts to harass a lady who had gone to him for help in a dowry case,” she said.
Maintaining that it was not easy for her to get a case registered against Ahlawat, she said she would go all out to take the case to its logical conclusion.
Rathore was recently sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for molesting a minor on August 12, 1990. The victim had committed suicide three years after the incident.
