Court pulls up investigators, calls probe patriarchal and insensitive
New Delhi: As a Delhi court on Monday convicted Bangermau MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar in the Unnao rape case under relevant sections of the IPC and the POCSO Act, Principal Sessions Judge Dharmesh Sharma sharply rebuked investigative authorities who had probed the case,
including the CBI for not following mandated regulations in conducting the investigation in such cases.
"This investigation has suffered from patriarchal [sic] approach or inherent outlook to brush the issues of sexual violence against children under the carpet apart from exhibiting lack of sensitivity and humane approach. It appears that somewhere investigation in the instant case has not been fair qua victim of crime [sic] and her family members," Judge Sharma opined while bringing the main Unnao rape case to its logical end.
The court also pulled up investigative authorities over the fact that the probe in the case was not conducted by a woman officer, as mandated by Section 24 of the POCSO Act and that successive statements of the victim were recorded by summoning her to the CBI office "without bothering for the kind of harassment, anguish and re-victimisation that occurs to a victim of sexual assault in such case".
Judge Sharma went ahead to note that the CBI had taken more than a year to file a chargehseet in the gang-rape case involving the Unnao victim, despite having finished the probe within three months of taking over the case from local police.
The court said that police reports filed in July 2018 showed almost entire investigation in the case having been completed and yet the central agency had chosen to file a chargesheet in the case only in October this year.
The trial court also noted that investigative authorities had selectively leaked witness statements and vital information pertaining to the gang-rape case, thereby attempting to put a cloud over the complainant's case in the matter and that officials had not examined the enormous data gathered from the phones of Sengar and the rape victim's uncle Mahesh Singh.
Sengar's skeletons
While Sengar's conviction in the rape case finally validated the charges levelled by the then-teenaged victim,
the former BJP legislator still faces grave charges in four other cases pertaining to alleged cruelties committed against the rape victim - including kidnapping, gang-rape, the custodial death of her father, and threatening to harm her multiple times.
The case in which Sengar has been convicted pertains to the victim's rape on June 4, 2017, in which Sengar and Shashi Singh were made accused. The victim soon reported the incident but did not mention Sengar's name in her statement before the magistrate as she had recieved threats to her life if she did so.
And while the victim ran from pillar to post to get the investigation against Sengar started, the second case in the saga was registered, where it was alleged that Sengar, his brother and their men had kidnapped her and then gang-raped her.
As the victim's father then took up the mantle to get the probe started against the local MLA, the third case was registered - this time an Arms Act case against the rape victim's father - following which he was arrested and died under mysterious circumstances in the custody of local police.
The CBI found that the Arms Act case had been registered to falsely frame the rape victim's father and then registered the fourth case to probe his custodial death.
And as these four cases were being probed by the CBI, the fifth case was registered in July this year, pertaining to the accident that killed two of the rape victim's aunts and put her and her lawyer in a critical condition.
The Supreme Court then took suo motu cognizance of the accident and moved all Unnao-related cases from Lucknow to Delhi for trial.
Sengar has already been charged with murder in the custodial death of the rape victim's father and the gang-rape case.
The CBI also filed a chargesheet against him in the accident case but did not add charges of murder or attempt to murder.
