Delhi: Woman Guard Allegedly Sexually Assaulted By Manager, Dies

A 19-year-old woman from Jharkhand who was working as a guard at a housing society in one of the city’s largest townships to fund her higher studies passed away in Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital on Monday. This came after she accused a maintenance manager of sexually abusing her in a storage room.

The accused, identified as Ajay Kumar, who is in his mid-30s, was arrested by the police based on the complaint of one of her family members, who claimed that several people were involved in the assault. The police are awaiting the autopsy result.

Woman Guard Sexually Assaulted Dies

Deputy Commissioner of Police (rural) Vivek Yadav said that they received a call from a private hospital on Sunday afternoon informing them that a woman had been admitted following allegations of sexual assault. She had complained of experiencing acute breathlessness.

The DCP added that when they spoke to the woman’s family members, they claimed that she had been raped by the society’s maintenance manager and beaten by two other men. Based on the family’s complaint, the police registered an FIR for gangrape against the three men.

The woman had given a written statement before a magistrate on Sunday around 9 p.m. in which she only named the maintenance manager. Unable to speak, she scribbled on a piece of paper, explaining that "he did things that were wrong."

The woman was shifted to Safdarjung Hospital on Sunday, where her condition deteriorated. She died on Monday morning during treatment.

The woman, hailing from Jharkhand’s Giridih, couldn’t continue her education after class 12 due to financial constraints, according to a statement by her cousin to the Times of India. She moved to the NCR city two months ago to find a job to support her education and landed a job as a guard at the society, which was part of a township off the NH9, about 40 days ago.

As reported by TOI, the other guards revealed that the manager often used to call her to the office under the pretext of checking the attendance register. He also used to flirt with her and make indecent comments.

On Sunday, around 11.15 a.m., the woman went to the storage room to fill her water bottle from the water filter. However, when she returned 30 minutes later, she was upset, crying, and saying that she had been wronged. Suddenly she became violent, closed the main gate, and refused to let the residents in.

She had then asked the other guards to call the police, saying that she wouldn’t open the gates until the cops arrived. One of the guards said that she complained of breathlessness while talking and slumped on the floor, after which they took her to a nearby hospital.

DCP Yadav said that the doctors informed that the woman had problems in her lungs and that her blood pressure was very high when she was brought to the hospital.

Two audio clips have emerged since the woman’s death. In the first clip, the woman tells her colleague that the manager locked the storage room door and tried to kiss her by offering her some money and a new mobile phone. The storage room didn’t have any CCTV cameras.

In the second clip, the accused is heard alleging that he was only trying to take a printout when he accidentally touched the woman’s hand. He claimed that he asked her to stay back in the room only because he wanted to give her some papers.

When asked why he locked the door, he told his senior official that he did it because he lost some money a few days ago. The manager is heard saying that he didn’t do anything wrong and that the woman shouldn’t lodge a police complaint.

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