RANCHI: Uma Devi, a widowed mother of three, was allegedly raped on Friday inside the police post at Khadgarha, 2 km from the town centre here. The alleged rapist, police constable, Chakkan Sao, was arrested, placed under suspension and remanded to judicial custody on Saturday.

Though visibly-shaken, Uma Devi, who worked as a maid at the police post registered her complaint with police on Saturday night.

``I had been washing utensils and cooking food for the policemen at the post for the past one and half year... At around 5 pm when I was cooking, there was nobody at the police post except he (Sao) who raped me,'' she said in her complaint.

Hers is not the first case of rape this year in Jharkhand. On January 15, Faguni Manjhi, 20, mother of a one and a half year old son, was allegedly gang-raped and stoned to death at Phusri village in Hazaribagh district.

She was a labourer at the brick kiln. The killer rapists were kiln owner Goverdhan Mahato and four of his associates, alleges her husband.

But police booked all five on charges of murder allegedly at the behest of Congress MLA Manoj Yadav and the JMM MLA Teklal Mahato, Rape charges were not filed against them at all, enabling them to secure bail, a report says.

In yet another instance, Remha Devi (22), wife of Ramdas Ram, a Dalit labourer, was gang-raped by five land-owners at Chaura village in Giridih district on April 5. Police registered an FIR and arrested them only after CPI-ML MLA Mahendra Singh reportedly intervened.

Poonam Kumari, 26, wife of Basant Toppo, a tempo driver, was another woman who was raped by an yet-to-be-identified person here in Jaggannathpur on Friday. The case seems to have run into a dead-end with Poonam unable to speak about her trauma.

No body knows whether she is dumb. She was brought to the Sadar hospital by a Jaggannathpur police station jeep. Ranchi city SP Sampat Meena interrogated her at the hospital premise itself on Friday night.

``Through her gestures she indicated that she was raped,'' Meena told this website's newspaper. A report hints that her rapist was also a policeman. But Meena, who is supervising the case, said nothing could be said with certainty since she can't talk or write.