Name: Captain Rakesh Walia Age: 65 years Occupation: Retired Army Officer
This incident is from 2021. A 44-year-old woman called Rakesh posing as a social influencer and asked for a meeting. On 29 December 2021, a 45-minute meeting took place and an FIR for rape was filed against Rakesh. The case went to the Sessions Court, High Court, and then the Supreme Court. When investigation began, 9 victims of the woman’s false FIRs were found in Delhi alone. Rakesh was the 10th target.
After 4 years of the case running, in February 2025, the Supreme Court quashed the FIR against Captain Rakesh Walia. Before this, he had already filed an application for a reverse case against the woman who made the allegations in 2022. The police filed an FIR 3 years later, when the Supreme Court acquitted Captain Walia.
45-minute meeting, after which a rape FIR was filed
Captain Walia explains, ‘My book was published in 2017. At the end of 2019, I received a call from someone named Sidra Mansoor. She introduced herself as a social media influencer and said she would promote and translate my book. She expressed her desire to meet me. Due to busy schedules, the appointment kept getting postponed, and finally a meeting was fixed for 29 December 2021.’
‘Sidra said that she would come with her husband and conduct my interview in the car itself. I didn’t know that this meeting would shatter my life and dignity. I reached Chhatarpur Metro Station at 3:30 PM for the pickup, but only Sidra was there. She told me that her husband had to go for some work. Then the interview started in my own car.’
‘Sidra had 2 phones and a voice recorder. Everything was normal, but I became suspicious when Sidra said that continuous phone calls were interrupting the interview. She asked if we could go to some park or hotel and talk in detail. Without saying anything further, I dropped her off at 4:15 PM in front of the Botanical Garden (Sector 38) police station in Noida.’
‘The total meeting was 45 minutes. I hadn’t even reached home when I got a call from Noida Sector-37 police station. The police said that a woman named Shabnam has accused me of rape. I told the police that I don’t know her. Then at 11:30 PM, I got a call from Mahrauli police station. I was informed that Shabnam has filed an FIR of rape against me. That’s when I learned the real identity of Sidra Mansoor.’
After retired Army officer Captain Rakesh Walia filed a reverse FIR, Shabnam’s entire game was exposed.
3 discrepancies were found between the story recorded in the FIR and the facts…
1. Captain Walia explains, ‘It was written in the FIR that I made Shabnam sit in the car at 3:30 PM. 20 minutes later at 3:50 PM, when she felt thirsty, I gave her a cold drink which was drugged. 15 minutes later she started getting intoxicated, meaning by now it was 4:05 PM. 10 minutes later, meaning at 4:15 PM, she became unconscious, taking advantage of which I raped her. Whereas in reality, I had dropped her off at 4:15 PM.’
Discrepancy: The drop-off time and unconsciousness time are the same, so when did the rape happen?
2. ‘According to the FIR, the spot of rape was Noida Sector-34 or 35. Here itself, I brought down the woman from the front seat in an intoxicated state and made her sit in the back. In actuality, the car kept moving around in this same busy area.’
Discrepancy: Would a 60-62 year old person seat a 44 year old woman in the back seat so cleanly that no one could even see, that too, when she is intoxicated?
3. The intoxicated woman kept moving from one police station to another and then to a third from 4:15 PM to 11 PM. FIR was not filed at Sector-37 in Noida or Ghitorni police station in Delhi. She reached Mahrauli police station in Delhi at 11 PM and the FIR was registered in just 13 minutes, i.e., at 11:13 PM.
Discrepancy: How can a person in an intoxicated state travel so much?
According to Captain Walia, as soon as the FIR was registered against him, demands for money through blackmail started coming through different people.
Alleged rape, but did not get medical examination done
Captain Rakesh Walia further explained, ‘At 10:55 PM on the night of the incident recorded in the FIR, my son received a message on Facebook. It read, ‘Are you Rakesh Walia’s son? Your father raped me.’ An attempt was made to intimidate by conveying this to the family.’
‘When I went to the police station, there was interrogation and medical examination. However, the woman who filed the complaint refused to undergo medical examination and provide clothes for investigation. She couldn’t even identify the spot of the rape.’
Gathered evidence in 2022 and filed a case against the woman
Captain Walia further states, ‘In 2022, I started searching for evidence against this woman and also collected 3-4 FIRs. These were filed by the woman against other men. The method of framing everyone was the same. On 25 February 2025, the Supreme Court quashed the FIR filed against me.’
‘I also filed a complaint against the woman for lodging a false FIR and extortion, but it took the police 3 years to register the case. The same police wrote an FIR against me in just 13 minutes, when the woman had only her statement as evidence. I had 9 FIRs, which had evidence of trapping other people as well. Finally, in March 2025, an FIR was filed against the woman.’
Amit Lakhani, a member of Captain Walia’s lawyer Bharat Chugh’s legal team, says, ‘This case was so weak that it was dismissed in the second hearing in the Supreme Court.’
He alleges, ‘The police arrested the woman, but released her within an hour. After that, the press release issued by the Crime Branch was also interesting. They had written – Crime Branch busted a honeytrap racket. This is a big organised racket. Meaning, they are accepting that this is a big racket, but how could they arrest and release her so quickly at the same time?’
Before Captain Walia’s case came to light, Delhi Police had issued a circular in November 2020, asking Investigating Officers (IOs) and SHOs to prepare data on honeytrap cases, but the database was not prepared.
The game of extorting money from government funds through rape cases
To understand whether there is actually a gang active behind these cases, we met RTI activist Soni Kapoor who is working on such cases. He explains, ‘Making money by filing false rape FIRs has become an organised crime. At least the Delhi statistics indicate this.’
‘Look, if a woman reaches the police station and says that a person has raped me, then registering an FIR is mandatory for the police, otherwise that officer himself will be punished. This is called Zero Hour FIR. Now whether all this happened with consent or not, the woman will tell. Only her statement will be considered true. She doesn’t even need any witness.’
‘After the FIR is written, on court’s orders, the rape victim starts receiving financial assistance as government compensation. In Delhi, this amount is ₹5 to 10 lakh. Up to 50% money is received by the time the chargesheet is filed. There is a rule to recover the money if charges are not proven, but it happens in very few cases.’
Trial of 3097 rape cases in Delhi, conviction in only 133
Soni Kapoor further explains, ‘I had requested data from the police about women who file rape cases against different men. Then they extort money from the government under the policy. They make slight alterations in the letters of their names so that they don’t get caught in the software.’
‘In Delhi, we tried to extract data of such cases from three places – the police, Delhi State Legal Service Authority (DSLSA) and the court. The police headquarters flatly refused. In such a situation, it was almost impossible to extract data by filing RTI at every police station. Therefore, we went to DSLSA. The response from there was that we don’t maintain any such data.’
‘After this, we went to 11 different courts in Delhi. We got data from 10, but haven’t received it from Dwarka court yet. All this took about 4 months. If we just look at Delhi’s data, in 4 years there were trials in a total of 3097 rape cases, but conviction happened in only 133 cases, meaning the conviction rate is merely 4.3%.’
On extracting data from other states as well, Soni explains, ‘Apart from Delhi, such data has been obtained only from Karnataka. There the conviction rate is even lower at just 0.36%. This too has been extracted by someone through RTI. Two months ago we also filed an RTI in Haryana. To extract data from across the country, a large network is needed, whereas we have a fairly small team.’
‘No data on fake rape cases, recovery of compensation is the court’s job’
When asked for data on honeytrap cases in Delhi, Additional DCP of North Delhi Ravinandan says, ‘This information will be available from police headquarters. To my knowledge, no such data is prepared. I was posted here just a week ago, so I cannot tell you much more.’
We had already contacted the police headquarters, but no data was found. Then we asked about the recovery of money given to the victim when a rape case is proven false. In response, we got, ‘Giving money and recovering it is the court’s job, we cannot tell you this.’
‘You will have to get this data from Delhi’s court or it may be available from DSLSA. We tried to contact DSLSA on its official number, but the phone was not answered.’
Conwomen honeytrap men for extortion
Advocate Deepika Narayan, who works for men who are victims of honey traps, says, ‘We have received such cases from across the country. There is an abundance of cases in Jabalpur, Jaipur, Gurugram and Delhi. Currently I have 25-28 cases where women have filed cases against 3 to 15 men. We are following these.’
Is there accurate data? Our capacity is not equal to the government’s, which can collect data from the entire country. We had requested a list of such cases from all districts of Haryana, but received responses from 8 districts. In just these districts, 51 such women were found who had filed cases of rape, gang rape and molestation against 3-15 men.
