Gujarat: Farm labourer dies by suicide after being ‘raped by land owner’

“The accused is on the run but efforts are on to arrest him,” a police officer who is investigating the case said.

An agricultural labourer allegedly died by suicide after she was raped by the land owner in a village in Wadhwan taluka of Surendranagar district late on Tuesday.

Police said that the accused Yuvrajsinh Parmar, owner of 30 bigha land in Wadhwan taluka, sought sexual favours from the wife of a man who was working as share-cropper on the land. When the woman resisted, the land owner beat her up with a stick and threatened to kill her and her three-year-old son before forcing himself on her. Later Parmar fled the spot.

“The 30-year-old woman attempted suicide on the field itself…. When her husband returned, she told him what had happened,” an officer of Surendranagar district police said, referring to an FIR registered late on Wednesday on the basis of a complaint filed by the woman’s husband.

The husband took the woman to hospital where she died while undergoing treatment, the police officer said.

Police said the couple had been engaged by Parmar for cultivating his land and were to get 25 per cent of the produce as their share.

The accused lives in Ratanpar village on the outskirts of Rajkot city and had been sexually harassing the woman for the past few days, police said. Parmar has been booked for rape, abetment to suicide, criminal assault and criminal intimidation.

“The accused is on the run but efforts are on to arrest him,” a police officer who is investigating the case said.

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