The Deputy Mayor of Gurgaon, Parminder Kataria, has been booked for rape following a complaint by a 36-year-old woman, alleging that Kataria had promised to marry her. The case has been filed against Kataria at the Women’s police station in sector 51 Gurgaon.
According to information received, the victim is a widow and also known to be Kataria’s neighbour in Ashok Vihar. Though sources revealed that they were in a live-in relationship for six months before the complaint was filed. She now lives alone with her two children in her house in Sector 10, Gurgaon. Kataria befriended her couple of years back.
The FIR no 27, under Section 376 (Rape) and 506 (Criminal intimidation) of IPC has been registered against the Deputy Mayor. In her complaint, the victim has alleged that after her meeting with Kataria, he had promised to marry her and offered her a job in MCG to win her confidence. She alleged that Kataria exploited her physically on several occasions when they were in a live- in relationship.
Gurgaon Police Commissioner Navdeep Singh Virk said on Sunday that the matter is being probed and action will be taken as per the outcome of the investigation. “If the need arises, he would be arrested,” he said.
On trying to contact Kataria his phone was found to be switched off. A staff from his office said, “We have not had any kind of communication with him (Kataria) since Saturday night. As a matter of fact we were not even aware of any such complaint being registered against him. His phone has been switched off since morning and nor are we aware of his plans of attending office any time soon”.
“The victim has alleged that the deputy mayor had raped her repeatedly by making false promises of marriage. She has also alleged that he (Kataria) along with two other persons threatened her of dire consequences if she filed a complaint. The accused allegedly lured her with his powerful connections and offered her a job to win her confidence. Investigation will be carried out as per the law”, said Deepak Saharan, DCP East Gurgaon.
This is the second case where live- in relationship is a common factor in a rape incident. A month ago, the top cops of Gurgaon, Navdeep Singh Virk, the Commissioner of Police and Bharti Arora, the ex- Joint Commissioner of Police (traffic) had gotten into a spat over a similar case which involved a live-in relationship. Later the two top cops had accused each other of supporting the victim and the accused respectively. The case was then transferred to KP Singh, the Director General of crime. Following the investigation, Arora was transferred as the Deputy Inspector General of Police (Welfare and Training) at the police headquarters- Panchkula.