Pune: Female Resident Doctor becomes victim of Hate Crime

Pune: A 27-year-old female resident doctor recently became a victim of ‘hate crime’ by an American tourist where she was asked whether she was a Muslim and assaulted after replying in the affirmative.

Subsequently, based on the complaint filed by the doctor, a non-cognisable offence was registered against the accused of allegedly abusing and assaulting her.

However, as per the police officials, the 43-year-old American woman is mentally disturbed and undergoing treatment in India. It has been reported that the accused had also attacked a pair of burqa-clad female students on August 24.

According to a report PTI, the incident took place when the two women were shopping at the Clover Centre market in the Pune cantonment area. It all started when the American woman asked the doctor, who was donning a burqa, whether she was a Muslim.

In her complaint, the doctor stated, “I was going to Clover Centre when she came in front of me. The woman asked her if she was a Muslim before verbally abusing and physically assaulting her, she added.

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“She was abusing everyone including the police as well as the people from the embassy. Our effort will be to get her deported,” said Senior Police Inspector Bhosale of Lashkar Police Station. “The matter seems like it is a ‘hate crime’, but it is not. She seems to suffer from a mental condition,” he added while informing HT about the incident.

“We have checked her records and found that she is on prescription drugs and is taking treatment. When we called the embassy while she was here, she started abusing us as well as the embassy officials,” said Assistant Police Inspector, who is investigating the case.

An officer informed that the US-based woman is prone to engaging in abusive behaviour.

"When detained, she even abused our policemen. When US embassy people spoke to her on the phone, she even abused them when they asked her about her home state," he said.

"We have registered a non-cognisable offence under sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the IPC," he said. Non-cognisable offence refers to an offence in which the police have no authority to apprehend a person for the crime on their own. Under this law, the police require a warrant to arrest an accused and a court's prior approval to begin an investigation.

The officials further informed that the accused lives in a house owned by Muslim man in Kondhwa and is friends with him.