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NAINITAL: In a singular petition that has come up in the Uttarakhand high court (HC), a man — who underwent a sex change surgery to become a woman — alleged that her fiancé raped her on the pretext of marriage but police officials in Kotdwar refused to acknowledge her as a female.

The victim approached the high court with a complaint on Monday, following which, the HC asked the state home secretary, director general of police, investigation officer in the case and Pauri senior superintendent of police to submit their replies in the matter within two weeks.

The 27-year-old woman, a resident of Mumbai who appeared in the court, told TOI, “I had gone to the police to register a case under section 376 (rape) but police instead registered a case under section 377 (unnatural offences) of the Indian Penal Code . My medical report confirms my gender as female but even after showing police officers a copy of the report, they refused to acknowledge it.”

The complainant said that she was a lawyer while the man, who hails from Kotdwar, works as a senior housekeeping staff in a Mumbai-based five-star hotel. The woman said, “He proposed to me in 2016, after a year of both of us knowing each other. We had then discussed all the complications of such a relationship but he assured that he would always remain committed and love me. But everything changed in the next two years.”

She said that she underwent sex-change surgery in 2017 when the couple decided to get married. "We travelled to Uttarakhand many times after my sex change. All was well till early last year when he started extorting money from me. I even caught him in a compromising position with another woman. After a point, things were going out of my hand so I separated with him in March 2018. However, even after that he continued to harass me for money and gave me threats.”

Pauri senior superintendent of police Dilip Kunwar Singh said, “We have received the notice and we will be filing the response in the high court within the stipulated time.”

