An Indian teenager was beaten, gang-raped for three hours by four men and then robbed in central India.
But when the 19-year-old tried to report the attack she was sent to three police stations and mocked for making the tale up – despite both her parents being officers.
Investigators eventually agree to take the case but only after she chased down and apprehended two of the alleged attackers herself, along with help from her parents.
A 19-year-old woman was dragged underneath a bridge and raped by two men in India, before two other men joined them and raped her a second time in a three-hour ordeal (file image)
Police in Bohpal, Madhya Pradesh province, have now suspended a senior officer for refusing to take the complaint, the Times of India reports.
The attack took place on Tuesday as the woman was leaving coaching classes for a civil service exam she is due to take which will also allow her to join the police.
Around 7pm a man named as Golu Bihari Chadhar, who is on bail for the murder of an infant girl, grabbed her by the hand, the Times reports.
The teen fought back so Chadar called accomplice Amar Ghuntu who helped to drag her towards a nearby river bed underneath a bridge, it is alleged.
Refusing to give up, the girl hit both men with a stone, causing them to beat her with another rock before they allegedly tore her clothes off, tied her up and raped her.
After a while Chadar left to fetch cigarettes, gutka – a type of chewing tobacco – and clothes for the woman, it is claimed.
When he returned he was accompanied by two other men, named only as Rajesh and Ramesh, and all four men allegedly raped her again.
Three police stations in Bhopal refused to take her case until she chased down and caught two of her alleged attackers with help from her parents, who work in the police service
Chadar and Ghuntu, who are brothers-in-law and married to two sisters, eventually let her go around 10pm, three hours after the ordeal first started.
The teen was picked up by her father, who was already searching for her, and taken home before returning the next day to file a complaint.
But the first police station refused to register the complaint and sent her to a second, which in turn sent her to a third where an officer accused her of ‘making up a filmy story’, the BBC reports.
After leaving the third police station the girl spotted two of the alleged rapists loitering around 500 yards from where the attack took place and decided to catch them themselves.
Only after bringing the men to the police station was a complaint filed, and two officers have since been sacked for refusing to take the case.
The two other alleged attackers have also been arrested and a fast-track trial ordered.
The girl’s mother said: ‘It’s one of the worst experiences of my life.
‘If I, as a policewoman, have to face such problems in filing my daughter’s gang rape complaint, I can’t imagine what a common man goes through.’