People's Democracy

RUCHIKA CASE

Falsehood Contaminates CBI’s Closure Report: Brinda Karat

IN a letter written to the CBI director Amar Pratap Singh on December 24, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and Rajya Sabha member Brinda Karat has castigated as biased the closure report given by the CBI to the Punjab and Haryana High Court in two cases including the Rathore molestation case and demanded its withdrawal.

One notes that the Haryana’s former director general of police, S P S Rathore, was found guilty of sexual molestation of a young girl, Ruchika Girhotra, who later committed suicide. One of the reasons for the suicide was reportedly that the Haryana police was to pressurizing her to withdraw her complaint against Rathore and was also harassing her family, particularly her brother Anshu.

Following the closure report, Vijay Dheer, a key witness who had given his statement to the CBI investigating team, publicly refuted the CBI report as having distorted his statement. He said he had told the CBI that he had seen Ruchika’s brother Anshu being paraded by the Haryana police from the market to his house, stripped half-naked and handcuffed. But in the closure report the CBI said that “shopkeepers of Sector 6 market (in) Panchkula stated that they neither heard nor saw Anshu being paraded by the police in a half naked condition with handcuffs in December 1993. The neighbours of S C Girhotra also denied having seen parading of Anshu on December 25, 1993.”

Brinda Karat said it appeared that the CBI had deliberately manipulated its report by selectively excluding the key witness, Vijay Dheer, so as to favour Rathore, the accused. Its report in the post mortem case is also questionable. The team did not contact the complainants, i.e. the family members of Ruchika. The credibility of the report therefore is seriously compromised, the CPI(M) leader’s letter concluded.

In these circumstances, the letter said it was incumbent on the CBI to withdraw the report filed in the court which is contaminated by falsehood. Brinda Karat therefore urged the CBI director to personally study the report and record anew the statement of the key witness, Vijay Dheer, and also record the statements of the victim Ruchika’s family members.

The CPI(M) leader also expressed the hope that urgent action would be taken since the next hearing in the case is on January 28.