Moga rape case: Panel head urges victim’s family to record statement

Arshdeep Kaur (13) died after being allegedly molested and pushed off from an Orbit bus co-owned by deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on April 29.

The retired high court judge V K Bali, who heads the judicial inquiry commission, in the Moga molestation death incident, has appealed to the victim’s family to get their statements recorded at the earliest.

Arshdeep Kaur (13) died after being allegedly molested and pushed off from an Orbit bus co-owned by deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on April 29.

Bali, who went to Moga on Thursday to inspect the crime scene, also went to the girl’s village, Landeke, on Friday, but could not unable to meet her family. The family, including Arshdeep’s mother and brother, who were accompanying the girl at the time of the incident, and father were not home when Bali arrived. “We have recorded the statement of her grandmother, but the mother, father and brother were not there. The mother and brother are prime witnesses in the case. We appeal to them to record their statements at the earliest. If they want to visit Chandigarh and record statements outside Moga, we will provide them transport facility. Else, we will come to Moga again,” Bali said.

Divya Goyal

Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab. Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab. She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on “Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers” had won accolades at IIMC. She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012. Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab. ... Read More

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