Like a Movie Script! An Undercover Police Woman Busts a Ragging Gang
This story seems to be straight from a movie, but it actually happened at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College in Indore. A New Delhi anti-ragging hotline received a call from Indore in July this year. The complainants claimed that at MGMMC, a group of senior students would summon them to their dormitories before abusing and slapping them. They claim that the bullies made them harass their female classmates and perform inappropriate acts. A case was registered at Sanyogita Ganj police station in Indore. However, when police visited the college, out of fear, none of the students were forthcoming. After two months, when police couldn’t make headway in the case, they came up with a fresh plan- to go undercover. Shalini Chauhan, a 25-year-old police constable was assigned this case as she could easily pass as a medical student. It was a daunting task to mingle with the students, some of whom would get suspicious if she asked a lot of questions. However, Chauhan managed to pull the act off very well. She spent a lot of time in the canteen as that’s a place where ID cards are not checked and students are not much bothered about who all are around. Slowly, she managed to build a rapport with the students and was able to extricate sensitive information from them which was instrumental in solving the case. Chauhan’s patience and the strategy paid off and 11 students were arrested under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) — 294 (obscene act in any public place), 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt). Speaking to The Print, Chauhan said, “I never thought I could pass myself off as someone else and help crack such a sensitive case. I felt nothing less than a spy.”
