SO, NOBODY KILLED HER? Well ask her parents!

Adv. Vikram Singh Brar

This case is a highly unfortunate incident for the family of a 10-year-old girl having been brutally raped and murdered by the accused who was eventually acquitted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. How? Let’s find out….

The story goes that one day, a little girl (victim) was grazing cows in the fields along with her brother who was 5 years old at that time. They both felt thirsty, so they went to a nearby field and ask the helper there for a glass of water. He took the girl inside on the pretext of giving her water and raped her while her little brother stood outside watching the incident. The boy ran with all his might and informed their father, who came running at the spot. While their father inquired about the incident and whereabouts of his daughter from the accused, the accused somehow managed to run away. The entire incident was then reported to the police by the father and an FIR for the offences of rape and murder came to be registered against the accused herein which kickstarted the investigation process.

Just when you thought that everything pointed towards the guilt of the accused, what had caught my attention was the blatant shortcomings in the case of the prosecution which eventually lead to his acquittal such as:

1.    Glaring contradictions between the depositions of father and son in their statements before the police and court.

2.    Evidence of the boy was recorded two and half years later than the date of incidents, hence the possibility of it being tutored cannot be ruled out.

3.    Victim’s slippers and clothes were recovered at the instance of the accused but the recovery memo did not have the time and place of recovery mentioned in it. Moreover, the witnesses to the recovery memo were not examined by the prosecution.

4.    No legal aid had been provided to the accused till the stage of examination of prosecution witnesses.

An unfortunate case of several investigation lapses or was he actually innocent?

Statement of the brother of the victim had been recorded after a lapse of 2.5 years? The only eye-witness to the entire incident and his statement was recorded after 2.5 years? What was the investigating agency doing? What plausible argument the counsel for the accused made was that, the room for tutoring the witness was wide open, and quite rightly so.

Imagine what the parents of a little girl who was brutally raped and killed had to go through after such a shoddy investigation. What was their fault? Going to the police?

Sometimes, it is not the innocence of a person which saves him/her but severe lapses on the part of the investigating agencies, as had happened in this case. It is not uncommon that the parents of the victim or other eye-witnesses to the offence are won over by the accused and what does that lead to? The victim of the offence turns hostile before the court and refuses to identify the prime suspect or exonerates him of the heinous acts. Why? because her father had pressurized her to do so as the family recieved a huge amount for the same. A sad state of affairs.

My idea behind this article was to give you a little glimpse of what a terribly executed investigation looks like. We can all just hope that such incidents are not repeated in future so that we can all have a society where the real culprits are nabbed and brought to justice.