A 30-year-old mentally-ill woman was allegedly raped by the watchman and ward boy of a civic hospital at Bhosari, a suburb of Pune where she had been admitted last week.
Identifying the alleged culprits as watchman Pramod Manohar Mandekar (28) and ward boy Shailesh Jadhav (30), the police said a nurse of the hospital was escorting the victim in a lift on Saturday evening when the incident took place. Mandekar and Jadhav, who were present inside the lift at that time, stopped the lift on the ground floor and allegedly raped the victim women in the presence of the nurse, police said.
An inmate of rehabilitation home for mentally-ill women at Bhosari, the victim woman had been admitted to a local hospital run by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation for a mental ailment some days ago. The victim woman was to be discharged on Sunday. After the victim woman reported the matter to the rehabilitation home run by the Chaitanya Mahila Mandal, the officials there lodged a complaint with the local police.
Acting swiftly on the complaint, the police arrested the watchman and ward by of the hospital. Booked under Section 376 of IPC for rape, the two were on Sunday afternoon produced before a holiday court which remanded the duo in police custody till September 2. Saturday’s was the second such incident of rape involving a mentally-challenged woman reported from Pimpri-Chinchwad. On April 16, a 22-year-old mentally-ill woman was allegedly raped by a ward office at a private nursing home Walhekarwadi in Chinchwad.
After the hospital management sough to hush up the case, the police acted on a complaint lodged by the victim girl and arrested the suspect identified as one Subhash Modad (22). later, the police also arrested a doctor couple running the nursing home for allegedly trying to conceal information relating to the rape.