The Uttar Pradesh police arrested a Maulana (priest) of Momin Masjid in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, for sexually assaulting and blackmailing a head female constable for over a year on the pretext of healing her son.

In a statement, the Bhagpat police confirmed the incident and said that the accused has been arrested and a complaint has been registered against him.

The head female constable posted in the Bhagpat police station was allegedly raped and blackmailed for over a year by a Maulana in the pretext of her son’s treatment. The Maulvi coerced the victim to give him lakhs of rupees for the healing of her son and for maintaining peace at her house.

According to reports, after the death of her husband in the year 2006, a woman resident of Bijnor got a posting as a constable in the dependent quota who later went on to become the head constable in the Bhagpat police station. On June 29 last year, the younger son of the female constable was injured in a road accident. The son also underwent treatment in ICU for several months. Fearing that her son is possessed by a jinn or evil spirit (a superstition making the possibility of spirits inhabiting human bodies, a fairly universal belief across cultures), she reached out to Maulana Zubair of the city’s Momin mosque on July 30, 2018, for the treatment of her son.

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The Maulana, in turn, took advantage of her superstition and convinced the victim that her son was possessed by her dead husband. He then started forcing her to make a physical relationship with him assuring her to treat the son. He continued to scare the female head constable by warning her of his son’s death if she does not have physical relationship with him. Not only that, he also extracted lakhs of rupees from the woman.

Fed up by the mental and physical torture which lasted for almost a year, the head constable lodged a complaint at the Baghpat police station, after which the Maulana was arrested by police. Police has registered a case against the Maulana under relevant sections of IPC including section 376. The SC/ST Act also has been invoked as the woman belongs to Dalit community.