Indian hotel manager denies attempted rape of British tourist
An Indian hotel manager charged with the attempted rape of a British tourist who jumped from a second floor window to escape has denied any assault, saying he simply knocked on her door for an early morning wake-up call.
Sachin Chauhan, manager of the Hotel Agra Mahal Photo: BARCROFT
By Dean Nelson, New Delhi 3:48PM GMT 20 Mar 2013
The 32-year-old from Greenwich, London, told police she fled after Sachin Chauhan, manager of the Agra Mahal hotel close to the Taj Mahal, knocked on her door at 3.45 in the morning to say he wanted to give her a shower and an oil massage.
In a statement she gave a harrowing account of how she had pushed him out of her room and asked him to leave her alone, but he had tried to force his way in with a spare key. She had shouted for help for more than an hour but other guests ignored her screams, she said.
As Mr Chauhan and his hotel security guard appeared in Agra's magistrates court on Wednesday, his lawyer said he denied the charges, which have been upgraded from sexual harassment to attempted rape, suggesting the woman was "intoxicated" at the time. He said they would enter a not guilty plea before the court on Thursday.
"The girl had asked for a wake up call at 4am. At 4.05am he [Mr Chauhan] knocked on her door. She did not open the door. To find out if anything is wrong he called the guard to open the door. The girl decided the jump. He did not speak to her. Maybe she was intoxicated," said Prakash Narain Sharma, his lawyer.
Mr Sharma said his client had not offered the woman a massage and suggested her allegations were part of a conspiracy to damage Agra's reputation as a safe city and to frighten tourists into visiting as a day trip, returning to hotels in Delhi, he said.
Inspector Paranjeet Kaur of Agra's tourist police said the woman had not been intoxicated and the was no evidence in her hotel room that she had drunk alcohol or taken drugs.
Women's rights campaigners said her account highlighted the scale of fear among women in India and the level of sexual harassment they are subjected to. The recent rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a Delhi bus had created a "fear psychosis," they said.
Her claims emerged as the Indian parliament passed a new anti-rape bill to introduce tougher sentences, including natural life and the death penalty in cases where the victim dies from her injuries.
