UP: Reporter gang-raped in Mirzapur forests

A woman journalist employed with a Haridwar daily was allegedly gang-raped on Thursday night in Ashtabhuja forest in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh. One accused has been arrested by the police and their luxury SUV has been seized.

According to police, the reporter was in Mirzapur to cover a religious event at an ashram in Ashtabhuja area on March 24. A police said that the girl was staying at a hotel in nearby Vindhyachal with her sister.

On Thursday evening, she was at Ashtabhuja ashram to report on a religious event and she was escorted to the main road after 9 pm by an elderly seer of the ashram but the seer left after she said she would arrange for her return to the hotel.

The girl said in her complaint before the police that three men offered her lift in their luxury SUV saying they would drop her at her hotel. The men, however, started molesting her once she got inside the SUV.

When she told the men that she was a journalist, one of the three men tried to protect her and he asked the two others not to rape the girl but the two did not pay any heeds to his request and took the girl into the forest, raped her, and fled.

The victim somehow managed to reach Gate 10 railway crossing of Vindhyachal and narrated her ordeal to the gateman, who called the Vindhyachal police.

The police said that the girl gave them the registration number of the SUV which helped the police in tracking it. One of the accused, Ashwini Tiwari of Akodhi village has been arrested and the hunt is on to nab the second accused.