A reserve inspector of the Armed Reserve Police submitted to a special court here on Tuesday that the department was unable to trace the Duty Roster and the Armoury General Diary in the 2007 Vakapalli gangrape case.
Special Public Prosecutor S. Rajendra Prasad had sought for the registers from the Paderu Police Station and the Armed Reserve Police to gain information about the deployment of the Special Party Police in August 2007.
Judge O.V. Nageswar Rao of the SC/ST Special Court asked the Reserve Inspector why he has failed to produce the registers which should be mandatorily maintained in each and every police station, including the Armed Reserve. The judge added that if the registers were destroyed, the police should at least produce the Destruction Register.
The Special Public Prosecutor submitted to the court that three months have passed and yet the concerned police have not produced the registers or the Destruction Register. He also reminded the court that the Nagi Reddy report was also not produced before the court. He wondered whether these documents and registers were genuinely untraceable or if they were deliberately not being produced.
The Special Public Prosecutor concluded that if the police do not make their stand clear, he would be constrained to ask the court to initiate criminal proceedings under Section 349 CrPC against the witnesses for not obeying the court’s summons to produce the documents.
The judge posted the case to February 4, as a last chance for the production of the registers.
Decade-long case
It may be recollected that on August 20, 2007, 11 Adivasi women of Vakapalli village in Nurmati panchayat of G. Madugula mandal in Visakhapatnam Agency were allegedly gangraped by 21 personnel of the AP Special Police, who were said to be on a combing operation in Naxal-affected areas. Of the 21 accused, 13 were implicated in the case.
After a decade-long struggle by the victims, the Supreme Court in August 2017 had ordered that the case be heard by a Special Court constituted to handle cases registered under the SC/ST Atrocities Act in Visakhapatnam.
