“Former Chief Ministers shielded Rathore”
Vrinda Sharma & Rajesh Ahuja
CHANDIGARH: Breaking his silence, the father of the 14-year-old tennis player who committed suicide in 1993 after having been molested by the former Haryana Director-General of Police, S.P.S. Rathore in 1990, accused the former Chief Minister, Om Parkash Chautala, and other politicians of shielding the officer.
Talking to journalists at Panchkula on Thursday, he broke down while narrating the police harassment meted out to him and his family at the behest of Mr. Rathore, who was appointed DGP by Mr. Chautala in 1999.
Demanding a harsher sentence for Mr. Rathore for “abetting in the suicide,” he said had the Hukam Singh government acted against the officer in 1990 on the basis of the inquiry conducted by the then DGP, R.R. Singh, “my daughter would have been alive today.”
Why was Mr. Rathore not charged with “abetment to suicide” though the Special CBI Court at Ambala, where the case was heard initially, held that a case of abetment to suicide was also made out?
Successive Chief Ministers, including Bhajan Lal, the late Bansi Lal and Mr. Chautala “virtually shielded” Mr. Rathore and promoted him, said the father of the girl. The governments did nothing to prevent police harassment of his family when it was framed “in false cases.” It was only the courts that came to the rescue of the family and absolved it of the “fake charges.”
“My daughter was molested, harassed and driven to death. My son was tormented and false cases were filed against him. We were harassed at every stage. We were forced to go into hiding and leave Chandigarh owing to the harassment by Rathore and his colleagues. We were forced to withdraw the complaint as policemen were sent to our house to threaten us,” he said, his voice choking with emotion. “No girl in this country should go through what my daughter went through.”
He said he and his family were still “living in terror” and might have to seek “security,” as Mr. Rathore, who still enjoyed “political patronage and influence with the authorities,” was out on bail. The sentence of six-month imprisonment awarded to Mr. Rathore was “too little, too late,” said the father.
Mr. R.R. Singh and the former Haryana Home Secretary, J.K. Duggal, have said they recommended action against Mr. Rathore, but the political masters refused to initiate any action.
The case, which dragged on for 19 years, tells a long tale of a girl’s family which faced harassment — the girl was turned out of Sacred Heart School here for “indiscipline” and forced to appear for Class 10 board exams from the open school before she committed suicide. Neither the school nor the Haryana police are willing to talk about the “harassment meted out to the family.”
Madhu Prakash, a close friend and one of the complainants, said the fight was on to ensure that the abetment-to-suicide case was reopened and action taken against “those in authority” who harassed the family. However, a senior police officer said on condition of anonymity that it would be difficult to “trace the records” of “harassment” as sometimes such “activities” were “carried out off the record.”
Soon after molestation, the girl was suspended from the Haryana Lawn Tennis Association, then headed by Mr. Rathore. False cases of theft, murder and civil defamation were filed against her father and brother.
In October 1993, the girl’s brother, who was also in his teens, had multiple cases of car theft slapped on him, and was arrested in 11 cases. He was arrested by the Crime Branch of the Panchkula police and kept in illegal detention for more than two months. He was allegedly forced to sign on blank papers, which the police used to show his “confession” that he had stolen 11 cars. Mr. Rathore allegedly asked him to tell his sister that if she did not take back the complaint, her family would face the same action. On December 28, 1993, traumatised by the repeated humiliation and mental agony, the girl consumed poison and died the next day.
Source:http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/25/stories/2009122558040100.htm
