WEIRD INDIAN CASE

Fake victim!

Jharkhand High Court today ordered a fresh trial of the rape case in which two police constables were inadvertently acquitted on the basis of deposition given by fake witnesses and a fake victim by a lower court in Chaibasa.

The two constables, who had been promptly released from jail following their acquittal, were spotted by the actual victim, who approached the police and the court complaining miscarriage of justice.

The two police constables sensed trouble and disappeared from the police lines even before the judiciary could decide how to correct the situation. The case was eventually transferred to the high court, which set aside the order of acquittal and ordered that the two constables be arrested and remanded to judicial custody.

Chaibasa police constituted a special team comprising the officers-in-charge of seven police stations to track the constables down. One of the two constables, Turam Sinku, was finally arrested on July 10 this year while the other constable, Sadhu Charan Munda, surrendered before the court in Chaibasa on July 13. Both of them were produced before the high court today and Justice M.Y. Eqbal ordered that they be remanded to judicial custody.

Defence counsel Milan Dey, however, pleaded that the constables were not responsible for producing fake witnesses as they themselves were already behind the bars. He also urged the court to transfer the case from the court of the first additional district and sessions judge, Chaibasa. Both appeals were found unacceptable by the court.

While the “re-trial” vindicates the stand of the courageous 17-year-old girl, who accused them of raping her in February 2004 and complained again after they were acquitted, the mystery of the “fake witnesses” remains to be cracked. The prosecution lawyer in the lower court had even produced a woman, claiming her to be the victim. She was identified before the court as such, was examined and cross-examined by both the prosecution and defence lawyers in the presence of the investigating police officers. But neither the police nor the lawyers were able to see through the fake witnesses and the victim, even when the latter turned hostile and informed the court that she was withdrawing her complaint and was prepared for an out-of-the-court settlement.

It was only when the real victim spotted the culprits moving freely in Chaibasa that she learnt of the court proceedings. She, then, went to the court and deposed that she had never been summoned or examined earlier.

Report here


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