Mobilenews24x7 Bureau
Three exonerated and one messed up in lack medical evidences!
It has become a usual practice in our country that, when a ghastly incident of sexual abuse report comes, it gives a feeling as if the victim is on trial rather than the accused.
One of the most discussed and debated incident of gang rape in Hathras took place, in 2020, unfortunately the victim of the sexual offence seemed treated with more badly than the perpetrators.
The questions that the victim faces during the trial facing most embarrassing posers like whether she was the cause of the crime and obviously made to feel being wrong.
Often the investigation process gives a lurid look to the entire scene. Often judgments betray the elements of all major bottlenecks which hinders the justice delivery apparatus, and the case of Hathras was equally sordid.
The medical investigation, evidence collection and witnesses gathering and so on, the entire process makes the tragedy bereft of the seriousness.
Pronounced almost two and a half years after the Allahabad High Court expressed consternation at the conduct of the local authorities and pulled up the State machinery for “prima facie infringement of human rights of the victim and her family”, the verdict exonerates three out of the four accused, and sentences the fourth to life imprisonment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and the corresponding violation of the SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
Quite notably, the charges of rape and/or murder could not be proved against any of the accused.
Obviously the judgment appears to have been delivered on the basis of the inconsistencies in the case of the prosecution, and the evidence (or, the lack of it) put forth before the special court.
For a common man, the judgment exposes the inherent lapses which might have impacted the case. Surprisingly, the Court chose not to pass any observations on the blunders committed in the investigation and evidence collection.
The first, and perhaps the most outrageous lapse relates to the medico-legal examination of the victim.
It is an admitted fact that while the incident took place on 14 September 2020, it was only on 22 September that a forensic examination for sexual assault was carried out.
Several excuses have been tendered for this delay: the primary one being that in their initial statements, neither the victim nor her family members disclosed that the victim was raped by the assailants.
But let us examine this claim at its face value: a grievously injured young woman, allegedly assaulted by a man, was brought to a police station, and it never occurred to the police personnel that she may also be subject to sexual assault by the perpetrator(s)?
There is no requirement of a court order to conduct medical examination of a suspected rape survivor. Thus to not requisition an examination to confirm the possibility of rape raises serious questions on the competence of the personnel to whom the offence was first reported.
Be that as it may, what is more preposterous is the lack of psychological assistance provided to the victim and her family.
It is conventional wisdom that a victim of sexual assault may experience emotional trauma in which case, she has to be provided with immediate professional counselling. This is essential not only to document accurate details of the crime but also to provide the survivor with first contact psychological support and validation.
Which never happened in the case of Hathras victim.
As per the prosecution, the victim and her family were humiliated at the police station owing to their caste identity; in fact, no help was rendered to even take her to the nearest public district hospital. Even caste discrimination got a way into the probe as is evident from the prosecution version that the victim never got a good treatment at the police station..
The second major mess-up by the police personnel occurred in the recording of the dying declaration of the victim.
A dying declaration – that is, a statement given by a dying person explaining the circumstances and cause of their death – alone may be the sole basis of conviction, if it is found to be reliable.
