Agencies/New Delhi
The Saudi Arabian embassy yesterday said allegations of rape against a senior diplomat were “not proven” and deplored the “unwarranted media briefing before investigations are complete.”
In a statement over reports that police have filed cases against a senior diplomat on charges of rape and against his wife and daughter on charges of torture of two Nepalese housemaids at their home in Gurgaon, the embassy said it “strongly stresses that the allegations are false and have not been proven.”
The embassy said it has brought to the notice of the Ministry of External Affairs “the unwarranted media briefing before investigations are complete” and also “protested the unwarranted police intrusion into a diplomat’s house against all diplomatic conventions.”
The Saudi embassy said it would, however, wait for clarification from the external affairs ministry about the matter and wait for the outcome of the investigations.
No arrests have been made so far.
The Nepal embassy said it was in touch with the ministry and the police to seek a detailed report on the alleged rape and gang-rape of two Nepalese women by the diplomat and his friends.
The women, aged 30 and 50, have filed complaints with police alleging the unnamed diplomat kept them locked in his apartment where they were abused, assistant commissioner of police Rajesh Kumar said.
A police team rescued the women late Monday from the apartment after a third recently hired maid alerted a local NGO, the officer said.
One of the women told the NDTV network yesterday that they had been held at the Gurgaon apartment for about four months.
The victims told the Times Now television channel they left Nepal to work at the embassy official’s house in Saudi Arabia and they were never abused there. The violence only started when they arrived in India several months ago, they said.
“They would beat us every night and often there were more than one man who would torture and rape us,” one of the women said. “We have marks all over our body.”
Police will push ahead with their investigation despite the Saudi enjoying diplomatic immunity, although officers would co-ordinate with external affairs ministry, Gurgaon’s most senior officer said.
“We have been able to establish the identity (of the accused) and we have also been able to establish that the residents of that flat enjoy diplomatic immunity,” Police Commissioner Navdeep Singh Virk told reporters.
“We will investigate to prove the offence in accordance with the Vienna Convention.”
Two veiled Nepali women, who told police they were raped by a diplomat, sit in a vehicle outside Nepal’s embassy in New Delhi yesterday.
