Cuttack, April 27: The plight of 21-year-old Arati Majhi, a tribal woman of Jadingi village in Gajapati district’s Adava police station area, today came up before Orissa High Court.

Arati was allegedly gangraped in police custody. Moreover, cases were registered against her and she was dumped in a jail. The victim has been languishing in Berhampur jail as an undertrial prisoner for over a year now.

Arati has filed a petition seeking a CBI probe into the alleged gangrape by the police and CRPF personnel. The petitioner has also sought Rs 10 lakh as compensation.

“After a preliminary hearing today, the single judge bench of Justice Sanju Panda issued notices to the Orissa government. Moreover, the court, in an interim order, set a two-month deadline for completion of the inquiry into the custodial gangrape pending before the court of the judicial magistrate first class R. Udaygiri,” petitioner’s counsel Mruganga Patnaik told The Telegraph.

“Notices were also issued to the SP (Gajapati), the collector, the district magistrate (Gajapati) and the inspector in-charge of Adava police station (Gajapati) to file their respective responses,” Patnaik said.

According to the petition, the special operation group (SOG) and the CRPF personnel, during a naxalite flushing operation at Jadingi village, had forcibly taken her away from her house in the wee hours on February 12, 2010. “On way to police station, they showed her some pornographic pictures and photos. Thereafter, they covered her face with a piece of black cloth and committed gangrape on her,” the petition contends.

Later, at the Adava police station, she was declared arrested and forwarded to judicial custody. “The copy of the arrest memo was neither served on the petitioner, nor upon any family member. She was arrested by the force without obtaining prior permission of the judicial magistrate as per section 46 (4) of CrPC, which is mandatory,” the petitioner said.

Earlier, a petition was filed before court of the judicial magistrate first class R. Udaygiri for inquiry into the alleged custodial rape. However, the case has since been pending when Section 309 of CrPC makes it mandatory to conclude the trial or inquiry into allegation of rape within two months.

Initially, Arati was afraid of disclosing the incident to her parents. Later, on hearing the incident from her, Arati’s father Daksa Majhi (60) filed a petition before the court of the judicial magistrate first class R. Udaygiri in August. He sought an inquiry into the gangrape after no action had been taken by the police on her complaint.

“However, the mandatory judicial inquiry has not been over so far due to deliberate non-cooperation of the state government and police, adding fuel to the injustice caused to her,” the petition said, while seeking a CBI inquiry.

While seeking Rs 10 lakh as compensation, the petitioner claimed that she had “faced irreparable loss due to custodial violence, including sexual assault which affected her basic human dignity”.