A special court here on Thursday rejected a plea by the 23-year-law student suspected of having slashed the genitals of her ‘sexual aggressor’, a 54-year-old self-styled sanyasi, for an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the increasingly intriguing crime.
The ‘victim’, who first claimed that she had acted in self-defence against her ‘abuser’ who had sexually exploited her since she was a teenager, unexpectedly reversed her stance in the special court for Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) here.
In a sworn statement, she claimed that the ‘act’ was not committed by her “but by some other person and the police were not investigating the matter.”
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The accused, Gangeshananda, alias Hari, had always treated her as a “daughter and at no point of time has misbehaved or sexually abused me,” she had said.
The “incident happened due to the sole conspiracy” on the part of three persons who she named in the affidavit. She stated she was “only a tool” in their hands.
POCSO Judge T. K. Minimol, who heard her out, ruled in open court that the woman’s petition was not tenable.
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The case was at an initial stage. The judge was critical of the apparent change in attitude of the complainant after she had claimed self-defence in what could be legally construed as an attempted murder case.
The judge directed the woman to state in court on May 26 whether she was willing to put herself through a brain mapping and lie-detector test.
C. Suresh Chandrakumar, Special Prosecutor, POCSO, Kovalam, told the court that the victim’s plea was pointless. The State Police Chief had transferred the case to the Crime Branch after the local police came under criticism for not conducting a dispassionate inquiry.
The investigation was now on a fast track. Moreover, it was the prerogative of the government to decide whether a case should be transferred from the State police to the CBI or not.
Mr. Suresh objected to the woman appointing her own counsel without the prior permission of the court. He told the court that the State represented the victim in such grave crimes.
Meanwhile, the Crime Branch took the statement of two women activists who had interviewed the victim immediately after the crime in a bid to determine whether the law student was extraneously influenced to execute a last-minute ‘flip-flop’ in the case.