Key Points:
- Divya Dureja, a 27-year-old LGBTQI activist, poet and psychologist has been accused of a sexual assault by a 28-year-old French woman in a North Goan resort on 23rd of February.
- After the complaint, North Goa SP Utkrisht Prasoon said Dureja was arrested, but was released on bail by a local court last week.
- Elodie said, “I was terrified, in shock, and under the influence of the drug she’d given me. I could not move or do anything to defend myself. She, then forcefully inserted her hand in my vagina, for long minutes, getting deeper and deeper, regardless of the physical pain she was inflicting me, claiming she was planting a tree.”
- Dureja is still silent for any comment over the matter.
Divya Dureja, a 27-year-old LGBTQI activist, poet and psychologist has been accused of a sexual assault by a 28-year-old French woman in a North Goan resort on 23rd of February.
The woman filed a complain at the Pernem Police Station. After the complaint, North Goa SP Utkrisht Prasoon said Dureja was arrested, but was released on bail by a local court last week. He said the victim’s statement will be recorded before a magistrate under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The Victims Say
According to the complaint of the victim, Dureja kept her in her hotel room for over four-and-a-half hours without her consent and penetrated her with her fingers.
Under the name of performing a shamanic ritual, which is a religious practice that involves a practitioner who is believed to interact with a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance, Elodie was assaulted by Dureja. The goal of the ritual is usually to direct these spirits or spiritual energies into the physical world, for healing or ‘another purpose’.
Elodie said, “I was terrified, in shock, and under the influence of the drug she’d given me. I could not move or do anything to defend myself.” After about 4 hours, the victim was allowed to lay on her bed. “She, then forcefully inserted her hand in my vagina, for long minutes, getting deeper and deeper, regardless of the physical pain she was inflicting me, claiming she was planting a tree,” the victim recounted.
She wrote, “As the effects of the drugs finally were evaporating, I told her I wanted to leave, and she screamed ‘No baby, no baby. Let’s make love.’ Finally, she started yelling ‘the spirit allows me to let you go, you can leave.’ And I could leave the room, in shock.” Elodie said that she drove to her friend’s house in Arambol who then took her to the Pernem police station, where a First Information Report (No.33/2021) was registered. Divya was booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 342 (wrongful confinement) and 354 (sexual assault).
According to the police, the victim, a yoga trainer, had arrived in Goa in January. Elodie has been living in India for some time and has completed 500-hour coursework in ‘Hatha, Vinyasa & Ashtanga’ from Yoga teacher training school in AlakhYog. She was fascinated by the public profile of Divya Dureja, without realising the ‘predatory behaviour’ of the activist. Interestingly, Divya had once told Quint, “The important part is that it (lovemaking/sex) is consensual, communicative and a positive experience for all involved. At no point should there be any coercion felt or a purposely induced feeling of being ‘less/incomplete’.”
Dureja is still silent for any comment over the matter.
