Hindu priest arrested for raping woman

Police have arrested a man claiming to be a Hindu priest on the complaint of a woman who alleged that he raped her.

A 35-year-old divorced woman, Sakina Dost Muhammad Chandio, filed a complaint at the GOR police station that a man who introduced himself as Bhagat Karamchand has raped her by deceit.

Sakina, a mother of a seven-year-old child, stated in the FIR she came to Rani Bagh with her mother and sister-in-law for recreation on the first day of Eidul Fitr. "From there we went to see the Durga Shiv Mandir located next to the Circuit House Annexe," she said, adding that a person in the Mandir introduced himself as Bhagat Karamchand and told her that he was a priest and would bless her and make all her problems go away.

"Chand told me to come at eight or nine in the morning," she said. "I told my mother about the priest at eight in the morning on Monday and reached the temple where I found Chand waiting," she said.

The victim said that Chand took her in the storeroom adjacent to the temple and threw some powder on her face, which made her dizzy. After that he forcibly committed rape, Sakina said adding that he threatened me that if she tells anyone about what happened, she would get sick and die.

However, she went home in a rickshaw and told all the details to her mother who brought her to the police station to file a report.

Police having arrested Chand took him and the victim to Civil Hospital for medical examination and DNA sampling.

SSP Hyderabad Amjad Shaikh confirmed to The Express Tribune that the temple's management has been evading to share the CCTV footage of the day of the incident. He also confirmed that the initial medical report has established intercourse and the rape attempt. The police also recovered earrings of the alleged rape victim from the temple's room.

Durga Shiv Mandir is a central temple in Hyderabad. The local authorities claim that it was illegally built on the land of the circuit house. A sanitary worker employed in the circuit house took the initiative of constructing that place of worship.

"... checked the official record of the subject matter and found that it has been constructed in the premises of the circuit house Hyderabad which is [an] illegal construction," reads an August 29, 2017, letter written by an executive engineer Provincial Buildings Division to a former deputy commissioner. Some years ago the local staff of the circuit house wrote a letter to the authorities and named four sanitary workers who work with them for being involved in the alleged illegal construction.

The Hindu community, however, claims that the temple is centuries old and that it was built on a piece of land which legally belonged to them. The temple is often visited by dignitaries. Recently the governor Sindh Kamran Tissouri attended the Holi festival at that temple on March 25. Former chief justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed also visited the temple in October, 2021, during Diwali celebration.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 26^th, 2023.