New Delhi: A police officer in the western Indian state of Maharashtra is in the dock after a woman he allegedly assaulted and locked up on charges of soliciting for sex, was pregnant and suffered a miscarriage. Prime Minister of India Dr Manmohan Singh has been petitioned by a global human rights organization to launch an impartial criminal probe into the incident and some other such cases in India. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), authorities in India must protect the victim from police threats and also ensure no interference in the probe by the police. According to the detailed account mentioned by HRW in a press release, two sex workers were headed to a hospital to see a friend when the police officer called one over and began to beat her. The officer from the Satara district police, in Maharashtra, latched on to the other woman when she tried to intervene. According to the first-hand account of the second woman, the officer kicked her when she held his leg pleading him not to assault her as she was pregnant. After the incident, both women were put in jail on the false charge that they were soliciting for sex, the press release by HRW said. She was taken to the local civil hospital but not allowed to buy medicines prescribed by the doctor there. The two women were produced before a court which slapped a Rs 1,200 fine and released them. The pregnant woman again went to the civil hospital where documents reveal she suffered a ‘contusion'. But a few days later, she suffered a miscarriage, the HRW press release said.. No case has been booked as yet against the concerned policeman. In its appeal to Dr Manmohan Singh, the NGO has also recalled the assault on a school teacher by the police in another state – Chhattisgarh. The police assaulted and tortured Soni Sori, a tribal woman, accusing her of supporting the Maoist rebels.
