“Major Gogoi is my "Facebook friend" and I went to see him of ‘my own volition’,” said the Kashmiri girl who, along with Major Nitin Leetul Gogoi and another friend, was picked up from Srinagar's Grand Mamata Hotel on Wednesday, 23 May.
The mother of the woman has, however, disputed what she said, The Times of India reported.
As per a statement issued by the police, an altercation broke out between the three –Major Gogoi, Sameer Mala, and the woman – and the staff of the Hotel Grand Mamta on Wednesday after which they were driven to Khanyar Police Station.
The woman told the local magistrate that Major Gogoi and she were friends, and that she was there at the hotel to spend some time with the major. She told the magistrate that Major Gogoi and she had met on “several occasions” during their “outings”, TOI quoted sources as saying.
Major Leetul Gogoi was last year mired in a controversy after he tied a Kashmiri man to the bonnet of his car as "human shield" against stone-pelters.
A resident of Check-e-Kawoosa village in Budgam district, the woman's Aadhaar card mentions her year of birth as 1999, sources said.
“Whether she is really an adult is still a subject of inquiry; it needs to be corroborated from other sources,” an official told TOI.
The woman deposed before the magistrate that she and Major Gogoi came to know each other on the social networking site where the Major used a fake account by the name "Aadil Adnan".
She further said that she and Major Gogoi became friends after "he himself disclosed his identity".
TOI also reported that the woman's mother, Naseema Begum, however, said that Major Gogoi and Sameer Mala had raided her house in civilian clothes repeatedly since March 2018. Naseema also said that her daughter didn't tell her that she was going to Srinagar and had just sought permission to go to Narbal branch of Jammu & Kashmir Bank. She accused Sameer of "luring" her daughter and bringing Major Gogoi to their house.
Meanwhile, Army Chief Bipin Rawat on Friday said that exemplary punishment would be given to Major Leetul Gogoi if he was found guilty of "any offence".
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