Cases of love Jihad is on the rise in the country and the victims are finding it increasingly difficult to get justice. This time it’s about a Hindu girl from Chattarpur, MP who faced the wrong side of justice.
A 13-year-old Hindu girl was kidnapped and raped by on Babu Khan in the city of Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh. She sought to file a complaint against Khan but the Police kept her at the police station the entire night and beat her up so in order to dissuade her to withdraw her complaint. Three of the police officers in connection to this gruesome incident that occurred on 30th of August are suspended.
The rapist Babu Khan was finally nabbed and arrested on September 3 under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act.
Inspector Anoop Yadav, Sub Inspector Mohini Sharma, and Assistant Sub Inspector Gurudutt Shesha were suspended under whose watch this complete reversal of justice took place. The case was finally registered after the district child welfare committee (CWC) received the rape complaint.
Based on the minor girl’s mother’s account, the girl stepped out the play on August 27th but did not return to home. As a first step, the father filed a missing person complaint at the Kotwali police station the very next day. Three days later, on the 30th of August the girl returned and recounted her ordeal of how she was kidnapped from her house by Babu Khan, imprisoned and then raped for three whole days.
“We went to the police station to get a complaint registered. Two police women put pressure on my daughter to change her statement. They beat up my daughter. Another police officer took me outside. Inside, my daughter was kicked and beaten with belts,” she alleged.
It was a traumatic period for the parents too since the entire incident at the police station happened while they were stood right outside the police station premises. They had witnessed not only their daughter’s pain but also faced the brunt of the shady police system there. They were driven out by the police for insisting on filing a case and even as they finally agreed to press charges, they did not include kidnapping. The mother alleges that the police had even altered the age of their daughter to 17.
According to the CWC, the police seemed to be attempting to save the perpetrator and persuade the victim to change her story. When a CWC team visited the girl’s house, they found inspector Yadav with the accused who was in handcuffs. This is a complete violation of the book of law that states a rape accused cannot be brought in the presence of the victim.
