The alleged attack on a high school student by two men at Magodu village in Honnavar taluk on Thursday has turned out to be false.
The Uttara Kannada district police said on Sunday that the wounds on the girl were self-inflicted. She had attempted to commit suicide, but later changed her mind. Contrary to her earlier statement about the two men attacking her, the girl told the counsellors and the police that she inflicted the wounds on her palm with a thorny lemon tree branch.
On Thursday, rumour mills were abuzz that the girl was attacked by two men from a minority community, even as the alleged attack mutated into sexual abuse and murder. Honnavar, which has been communally tense for the past two weeks, turned into a ghost town following this news. Incidents of stone-pelting on houses of members of the minority community were reported in villages around Magodu.
Hemant Nimbalkar, IGP (Western Range), said that four cases have been booked against those responsible for spreading rumours.
The police said that the girl was being harassed by Ganesh Eshwar Naik, a youth from her village and community, for the past five months. He used to harass her to sit on his bike, almost everyday on her way to school. She was traumatised by this and recently complained to her mother, who had taken it up with the panchayat leaders as well, the police statement revealed.
On Thursday morning, when she left for school, she feared that she may be raped by the youth and that would bring disrepute to her family. To avoid this, she decided to kill herself, she claimed. “The girl has accepted that she inflicted the wounds on herself. Doctors have also said that the wounds have signs of a hesitation injury mark,” said Mr. Nimbalkar. But the girl soon realised her mistake and came to the road where she met her friend and asked her to get a bandage for her palm.
As the girls approached a nearby shop, the shopkeeper allegedly said he had seen two men from the minority community go into the forest the previous day and that they would have inflicted these wounds. Soon, several people gathered and most of them claimed to have seen the two men in the forest. “The girl was scared to say that the wounds were self-inflicted. When she was brought to the Honnavar Government Hospital, she repeated what the people assumed. But she told the truth during counselling sessions,” said the police.
Case booked
The police have booked a case against Ganesh Eshwar Naik for harassing the girl. He is at large.
Five held for attack on police
The police on Saturday arrested five men, three from Honnavar and two from Kumta, for attacking the driver of Hemant Nimbalkar, IGP (Western Range), whose car was set on fire during protests in Kumta on December 11. The five men, three of them traders in Honnavar, have been booked for attempt to murder, a non-bailable offence, and this has riled the trading community in Honnavar.
