The Mumbai Police, probing the allegations of suppression of evidence by Mumbai based industrialist Niranjan Hiranandani in a gangrape case have so far found no evidence against him in the case, The Hindu has learnt.
On June 17, 2014 a 28-year-old woman had moved a petition in the Bombay High court claiming that she was gangraped by senior police inspector of the Powai police station Y.L. Jadhav and two others — Prakash Wadkar and Sanjay Sansare — at a community shrine in Powai, a central suburb of Mumbai on June 14. She had also alleged that Mr. Hiranandani was responsible for destroying the evidence.
In her complaint, the victim had also stated that Mr. Sansare was threatening the residents of Jai Bhim Nagar in Powai to vacate their slums allegedly at the behest of Hiranandani and when she refused to evict the land, the three allegedly raped her.
On June 24 the Bombay High Court ordered the Mumbai crime branch to investigate the case. Accordingly the police lodged an FIR against eight persons, including Mr. Jadhav, Mr. Wadkar, Mr. Sansare and Mr. Hiranandani.
The police suspect that the victim was illegally occupying the land which was in the possession of a company owned by the Hiranandani Group.
“The victim had claimed that she was married to an employee of the Hiranandani Group but we found that she is actually an illegal resident who is a namesake of the employee’s wife who died in 2004-05,” a senior police officer probing the case told The Hindu .
“There are many loose ends in the complaint. After lodging an FIR the victim was subjected to a medical test, the report is inconclusive,” he added.
“Also the victim had given names of the witnesses who she had claimed were present in the area and had seen the accused having an altercation with her outside the shrine before she was raped but nobody has affirmed her claims nor have they testified against the accused. Also the other circumstantial evidence does not add up to support her case,” he added.
But the victim’s lawyer Gunratan Sadavarte claims that the police are conducting a biased probe. Last week they had submitted a CD to the court of a threat call received by one of the witnesses alleged by an associate of underworld don Chotta Rajan to turn hostile.
“The victim herself was directly threatened by the accused in the crime branch premises when she went to record her statement,” Mr. Sadavarte said.
“The victim, a dalit woman, has been residing in the colony meant for the backward class and the Hiranandani Group wants to acquire the plot. The crime was committed by the three accused on his behest,” he alleged.
The lawyer claimed that the night of the incident the victim had approached the Powai police station to lodge a complaint but was turned away. “She was left with no option but to get a medical report from a private hospital,” he added.
