Chandigarh: Rape accused self-styled pastor Jashan Gill, who was on run for the past two years, on Wednesday surrendered before police in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district after his brother and sister were arrested for providing him shelter earlier this week.
Pertinently, on April 1, last, only, a Mohali court sentenced another self-styled Christian pastor Bajinder Singh to life imprisonment in a 2018 rape case on April 1.
According to information, while Jashan’s brother Prem Masih was arrested from Jammu on Monday, his sister was nabbed on Tuesday from a village in Gurdaspur; Jashan was on the run for the past two years after he was accused of raping a 22-year old woman in 2023.
The police held that it was the persistent chase and efforts of the police that left Jashan with no option but to surrender after his brother and sister were arrested, showing that the police was not going to spare anyone who provided him shelter or helped him in any other way.
It may be recalled that the victim’s family had alleged that the accused Jashan who raped her repeatedly had forced her to undergo an abortion due to which she died in 2023.
The father of the victim had alleged in his complaint to police that his family used to go to a church in a Gurdaspur village where accused misled his daughter, who was 22 and a student of BCA, and raped her several times. When she got pregnant, he forced her to undergo an abortion by a nurse who botched it up leading to her death, he held and added that the police did not act in the context, in his plea before Punjab and Haryana High Court on April 5 seeking a CBI probe.
He had told newspersons that he got threats after he lodged a complaint with the police. Since even Punjab police did not do anything to nab him, he had to move the high court.
However, police held that it had registered a case of rape against Jashan Gill on July 9, 2023 and was continuously searching him.
