Indian Air Force chief Vivek Ram Chaudhari on Tuesday denied that the two-finger test was conducted on a woman officer who accused a colleague of raping her in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore city in September, The Hindu reported.
Doctors at the Air Force hospital had been accused of conducting the banned two-finger test on the woman, which she said made her “relive the trauma” of the assault.
The Supreme Court had banned the test in 2013. Critics have pointed out that it is unscientific and prejudicial towards a sexual assault complainant, since it is used to test the laxity of vaginal muscles and could be used to judge sexual history etc.
Chaudhari said that the Air Force is very strict about such incidents. “The two-finger test was not carried out, it was misreported,” he said, according the newspaper. “Actual fact is this test was not done. All disciplinary action that comes from this enquiry will be taken.”
The alleged assault had taken place in an Air Force training academy in Coimbatore on September 9. The accused person in the case is 29-year-old Flight Lieutenant Amitesh Harmukh.
The accused person was arrested on September 26. After the arrest, the Air Force filed an appeal in a judicial magistrate court seeking permission to court martial him. The court gave its permission for this on Thursday.
According to the first information report filed in the case, the complainant took a painkiller for a leg injury on the day the alleged crime took place.
Later on in the day, she had two drinks at the Officers’ Mess bar, one of which the accused person had insisted on paying for. After the woman felt unwell, two of her peers took her to her room. Harmukh tried to enter her room and wake her up more than once.
The next morning, the woman was woken up by one of her friends. They asked why Harmukh had been in the same room as her. The officer and the friend then “realised she had been sexually assaulted”, according to the FIR.
The woman has alleged that senior officers of the Air Force had attempted to talk her out of registering a complaint.
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