Officials in Rajasthan’s Sirohi accused of raping 15-20 women, 8 FIRs filed

“And in compliance with the court’s order, we have lodged eight FIRs in the same case against the Municipal Council Chairperson and the former Municipal Commissioner,” said Choudhary, who is also the investigating officer for the case. “The probe is on,” he added.

Chairperson of Sirohi Municipal Council Mahendra Mewara and former Sirohi Municipal Council acting commissioner Mahendra Choudhary said the allegations against them were false, and that during the police’s probe last year, investigators were unable to locate any of the women or find any evidence. Mewara said a man who had been involved in a case related to the grabbing of municipal land was behind these allegations, and that the same man had got four-five FIRs registered against Mewara in the past.

In the rape complaint lodged last year, a woman had alleged that she and 15-20 other women had gone from Pali to Sirohi for recruitment for anganwadi jobs. She alleged that she met Mahendra Mewara and Mahendra Choudhary there, and they made the women stay at the place of one of their acquaintances. It was alleged that the food served to women was spiked with drugs, and once the women passed out, Mewara and “10-15 others” raped them and recorded videos.

The complaint also claimed that the accused had blackmailed the women with videos, and demanded Rs 5 lakh from each of them.
The Final Report filed by the Sirohi police in February 2023 in the case had concluded that the case was false. It had said that none of the women came forward when the incident happened “2-3 months” ago, that they have not specified any location of the alleged rapes, that the complainants have not given any contact number of theirs or the accused, that the complaints were sent by post and not handwritten, and that the same complaint was copied multiple times.

The police had also said that they could not find a single woman at the given addresses. Moreover, Choudhary, who was working as an executive engineer with the charge of acting municipal commissioner, had retired in August 2022, nearly four months before the allegations were levelled against him. Choudhary also said that anganwadis come under the Women and Child Development Department, and not the Municipal Council.

Mewara said one Rajendra Gandhi, who he claimed is accused of grabbing valuable Municipal Council land, had been trying to put pressure on him with the help of one Ramniwas Daga, and that they had hatched a conspiracy to malign his image.

“Gandhi gets Daga to mail fake complaints against me via post. Previously, too, he has lodged 4-5 cases against me which were all found to be false,” Mewara said.