On Friday, a 19-year-old speech and hearing impaired girl, who as a minor was allegedly sexually assaulted by a group of men three years ago, arrived at the Krishnagiri court complex thinking the trial in her case had begun.
However, the summon slip — in English — named the girl and her mother as accused, summoning them before the Judicial magistrate’s court II. They were booked under Section 160 (public nuisance) in the final report of the CB-CID ordered by the Madras High Court to reinvestigate the attempt-to-rape complaint.
The girl in her original complaint had alleged that she was sexually assaulted by a group in the fields of Kodagarai, as punishment for a quarrel between the accused and her family, on the evening of December 25, 2014.
The local police registered a case of “attempt to rape” six days after the crime on the intervention of the Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of the Differently-abled and their Care givers (TARATDAC) and the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA).
Thereafter, her father filed a writ petition before the Madras High Court seeking the case’s transfer from local police to CBI.
However, in September 2015, Justice P.N.Prakash, quashed the final police report that invoked rape and ordered a fresh investigation. The judge had observed that “false charges are not unknown in this country” and invoked “Modi’s Textbook of Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology” on “False Charges”, on how parents inflict injuries on their girls to settle scores.
The order said the petitioner’s conduct was “suspect” and “prima facie it appeared that he had trumped up false charges of rape against the accused and the local police investigation was swayed by public opinion.”
“The Madras High Court had already declared there was no sexual assault, which is the job of the trial court, while hearing a plea to transfer the case. We condemned the language (of the court order) then, and (the) CB-CID report has branded the victim as accused,” says U.Vasuki, national president, AIDWA.
Stating that “turning the victim into an accused is shocking,” Jhansi Rani, state secretary, TARATDAC alleged, “This also sends a chilling message to complainants of sexual assault and (the) CB-CID colluded with the police.”
Objecting to the order, CPI (M) leader Brinda Karat along with a delegation of the TARATDAC and AIDWA met then Madras High Court Chief Justice to voice their concerns.
In the final report, which The Hindu read, the CB-CID speculates the girl “might” have been ‘tutored’ to allege molestation to the magistrate, because she did not convey ‘molestation’ to the doctors of the hospital.
But the doctors’ testimony in the final report also states there was no way to adequately interpret her sign language.
It questions the Dharmapuri Government Medical College Hospital’s medical report, which recorded a ruptured hymen, but accepts the medical report of the less-equipped taluk hospitals of Hosur and Krishnagiri, that said the hymen was intact and no sexual assault happened.
The report conjectures motives to the victim’s claims, but accepts statements that counter the victim’s at face-value.
The report ended with a ‘social’ position that a father would first attack someone that sexually assaulted his daughter and try to save her.
The CB-CID concluded it as “false case” of a street brawl and booked the girl and her mother along with two others under Section 160.
