With the rates of land increasing in the region, it becomes easier for many to settle property disputes when one party corners the other with a severe police case. Interestingly, in most cases, the disputes are within the family where members resort to filing complaints of atrocities, rape and kidnapping, which span tribal and non-tribal families.

On Saturday, a 19-year-old girl filed a complaint at the Santrampur police station that her uncle, his sons and daughters kidnapped her in December and gangraped her. However, the police said the complainant’s father had “prepared” some witnesses, who were to give a wrong version of the incident, but broke under police pressure. The police are now investigating if there was any truth in the complaint at all.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) A R Upadhyay said the Panchmahals police have handled at least four such cases in the last one month alone and many others in which the complainants backtracked after meeting the police. “Those who use this method only register cases which are hard to prove, such as kidnapping, rape and atrocity. Investigations in these cases are long and require more evidence due to its severity,” Upadhyay said. He added the alleged gangrape case was one such example in which the police had to carry out a diligent investigation despite suspecting a foul play.

Police officials said before this case, one Parmar family had alleged that their relatives had kidnapped their son for ransom, while in another case a tribal family filed a complaint under the Atrocities Act against a non-tribal family. The police said there were several cases that they identified as ‘fake’ and tried to advice the complainants not to file it.