Aruna's assailant in UP village, says report

Taking note of the report that Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki, who brutally attacked Aruna leaving her in a vegetative state for four decades, Mumbai Police on Friday said they will seek legal opinion to decide on further action against him.

<g data-gr-id="26">Walmiki</g>, who throttled Aruna with a dog leash rendering her a cripple at the prime of youth on November 27, 1973, said he could not recall anything about what had happened that day. However, he asked: "Why are you people calling it as rape".

<g data-gr-id="29">Walmiki</g> was jailed and released in 1980, not to be heard of again. Now after Shanbaug's death, he has been traced to <g data-gr-id="30">Parpa</g> village in Ghaziabad district of UP. He was never convicted of rape or sexual molestation but for assault and robbery.

For 42 years, Shanbaug lay comatose in the hospital until her death earlier this month, where she was cared by nurses and members of <g data-gr-id="36">medical</g> fraternity. She also became the subject of a landmark case about euthanasia that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Pinki Virani, who wrote Shanbaug's biography and petitioned the Supreme Court for <g data-gr-id="38">mercy-killing</g>, has claimed that based on her talks with hospital ward boys that <g data-gr-id="37">Walmiki</g> had moved to Delhi, changed his identity and went on to work in a hospital there. However, <g data-gr-id="39">Walmiki</g> says he never worked in Delhi. 

Meanwhile, reacting to the report that <g data-gr-id="28">Walmiki</g> is alive, the Mumbai Police said that it would seek legal opinion on whether to file a fresh murder case against him. "Prima-facie it seems that this old case may not attract any fresh sections as Aruna died of pneumonia," Mumbai Joint Commissioner of Police Deven Bharti said.

"While giving judgement on <g data-gr-id="33">plea</g> of <g data-gr-id="25">mercy-killing</g> filed by a journalist, the Supreme Court had said that let Aruna die a natural death. Hence, in this purview, Aruna died of pneumonia that seems to be the immediate cause of her death," he said.