Hathras case: Plea to probe destruction of evidence by doctors, U.P. police
UPDATED: 19 OCTOBER 2020
The petition was reserved for orders on October 15 along with a separate one filed by Satyama Dubey. File
Facts show role of officials in shielding accused, says activist
The Supreme Court has reserved for orders a writ petition filed by activist Chetan Janardhan Kamble seeking an independent investigation into the role of medical staff and top Uttar Pradesh Police officers in the destruction of evidence in the Hathras rape and murder case.
“The facts clearly indicate the involvement and complicity of certain U.P. State Police and officials of the State government machinery in manipulation and destruction of evidence and shielding the accused in respect of the subject crime,” Mr. Kamble said in a writ petition, filed by advocate Vipin Nair.
The petition was reserved for orders on October 15 along with a separate one filed by Satyama Dubey. The Bench led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde had voiced an inclination to have the Allahabad HC monitor the ongoing CBI probe.
In his petition, Mr. Kamble said, to start with, the “government hospital at Aligarh had not taken vaginal swabs and body smears of the victim or collected drop sheet after change of clothes, despite finding torn clothes and bleeding on under-garments”.
It said certain high-ranking police and government officials, even before the investigation was complete, had ruled out the possibility of rape, and made public statements to this extent.
This, the petition said, “indicates a clear nexus between the State Police and the accused”.
The plea said the “bizarre and barbaric manner in which the body of the victim was stealthily cremated in the dead of the night by police officials smacks of them being involved in suppressing the crime rather than investigating it”.
“This unpardonable crime by the State Police and other government instrumentality, which denied the family of the victim even the basic right to perform last rites on the body of the victim is nothing but depravity of the soul,” the petition said.
The petition said the intelligence report relied on by U.P. “appears to be prepared on second thoughts, and in any case it does not mention how police handling, transporting and cremating of the victims’ body would be necessary to quell any law and order situation”.
