Delhi: The farmers’ protest in Delhi has courted controversy with the police filing FIR against six persons in connection with gang rape and abduction of a 25-year-old activist at Tikri Border.

The accused have been identified as Anil Malik, Anup Singh, Ankush Sangwan and Jagdish Brar, along with two other women. They have been booked under IPC sections 365, 342, 376-D, 506, 120-B. All of them had set up tents at the Tikri border under the banner of the Kisan Social Army. The FIR stated that a delegation of farmers, including the accused, had held a public meeting in Hooghly, West Bengal, on April 1. The victim, an artist and designer, had at the time met them. She later came to Delhi to support the farmers’ protest. When the victim was on her way to Punjab on a train on April 11, accused Anil Malik allegedly tried to force himself upon her.

On reaching the Tikri Border protest site on April 12, the victim was forced to share the tent with the accused as she was alone, according to the FIR. She then told her father on the phone that the accused had been trying to pressurise and blackmail her. Her family brought the issue to the notice of the farmer leaders and her statement was video-recorded. Following this, the victim was shifted to another tent with women protesters However, she developed a fever on April 21 and was shifted to a private hospital where she was diagnosed with Covid-19. When her father came to Delhi, she told him that she had been sexually assaulted on the train and also in the tent by the accused. The woman also requested that the accused be punished but the farmers’ movement shouldn’t be disrupted in the process. She died during treatment at the private hospital on April 30.