‘Serial rapist’ held: In two FIRs out of seven, no mention of assault

Ravinder was first arrested in 2014 from Begumpur area for allegedly abducting, sodomising and trying to kill a six-year-old boy. At the time, police were unable to unearth his criminal record. According to DCP (Outer district) Vikramjit Singh, Ravinder had “admitted his mistake at the time” and said “he was in an inebriated condition when he committed the act”.

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Police said during questioning, Ravinder admitted to raping a two-and-a-half year old girl in Mundka area in 2011, before dumping her body in a forest.

Sources in the Outer District police told The Indian Express that officers went to the crime scene and checked the records of Mundka police. “On checking the records, investigators came to know that Mundka police had registered an FIR, numbered 214/11, under sections 363 of the IPC which pertains to kidnapping,” a police officer said.

Though the girl’s body was found a few days later, the investigation officer in the case did not add another section. Instead, investigation had been conducted under inquest proceedings of Section 174 of CrPC.

Police said similar holes in the initial investigation have also been found in the kidnap, rape and murder of a two-and-a-half-year old girl in Outer Delhi’s Samaypur Badli in 2014, that they said Ravinder has admitted to. But once again, police did not lodge a case under charges pertaining to sexual assault. The FIR, numbered 370/14, was lodged under sections 363 (kidnapping) and 302 (murder).

As the girl’s father put it, “It is only now that we know about what happened to our child. We didn’t even know that she had been raped before she was killed. Perhaps lives could have been saved if our case had been handled differently.”

DCP Singh added, “No section pertaining to sexual assault was lodged in the case registered at Samaypur Badli. We are investigating the matter. We are also looking at all possibilities in the Mundka case.”

The girl’s mother was among the parents who had come to the Begumpur police station after Ravinder’s arrest.

“We didn’t know what happened to our daughter. I was making tea when she she suddenly disappeared. Later, her body was found in a drain. It was taken to the hospital for an autopsy. We later cremated her.  But I never knew what happened to her or what became of the investigation. We are poor and uneducated people. We didn’t know what to do after we lost our daughter,” she said.