IES officer held for sexual assault on JNU student

A 26-Year-old Indian Engineering Services (IES) officer has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting, stalking, abusing and threatening to kill a Jawaharlal Nehru University student, police said on Tuesday.

The JNU student had complained about the accused, Rakesh Meena, who currently works as assistant engineer at Ministry of Road Transport and Highway, after she got fed up with his repeated pursuits.

Later, when she received death threats, she decided to open up about her sexual assault.

The student has complained that she was sexually assaulted since 2012. Taking stock of the situation the police also introduced the POCSO act in the case after it was found that she was a minor when the sexual assault started.

An FIR under sections 4 and 8 of protection of children from sexual offences (POCSO) act and 354, 354A, 354D, 506, and 509 of IPC has been registered at the Vasant Kunj North police station," said Chinmoy Biswal, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (South district).

According to a police source, the student and the accused knew each other and were living in the same locality for some time. The accused later made contact with her and they became friends.

However, the accused later started to harass her after which she spurned his advances. Infuriated over this, the accused continued his pursuit and stalked her on several occasions and would make calls at odd hours to strike up a conversation with her.

"She kept bearing all this for a while and later when she grew fed up, she decided to register a complaint," said Ishwar Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South).

Sources have alleged that the accused would send her obscene messages on WhatsApp and also threatened to leak her 'nude pictures' on social networking sites if she would not agree to his demands.

The accused was arrested and produced in a local court and has been sent to eleven days in judicial custody.