Pune: A court in Baramati on Wednesday directed the Pune Rural police to let the 21-year-old woman in the Bhigwan ‘abduction’ case live with her mother and maternal uncle. This was after the woman, earlier in the afternoon, recorded a fresh statement before a Baramati court through videoconference from a govt shelter home, stating that she wanted to stay with her mother and maternal uncle. Superintendent of police (Pune Rural) Sandeep Singh Gill said, “The court’s order came in the evening. Accordingly, we are initiating steps to implement it by shifting her from the govt shelter home to her mother’s home. Earlier in the afternoon, she was produced before the court through videoconferencing where she told the court that she wanted to stay with her mother.”On Feb 17, the woman’s mother and brother approached the Bhigwan police alleging that two men threw chilli powder into their eyes and abducted the woman from the Bhigwan market in a minitruck. Her marriage was scheduled for Feb 22. Following this incident, political party members and a right-wing organisation protested in Bhigwan by blocking the Pune-Solapur highway. Last Friday, the woman told the court that she had left Bhigwan with a friend with whom she was in a relationship, and that it was not a case of abduction. After leaving with her friend, she had gone to Mahabaleshwar, from where she uploaded a video on social media stating that she had not been abducted and had gone with her friend of her own will.
