Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The Manohar Parrikar government in Goa is in the eye of a storm following the gang rape of an art student at the prestigious Goa College of Art last week with women’s groups alleging a cover-up.
The case came to light when a complaint was filed against four youths and a canteen contractor for allegedly raping the student. The accused are said to be from prominent families while the girl is of part Kashmiri-part German parentage.
Women’s groups allege police initially did not register the case. Subsequently police, on the basis of a medical examination of the victim, said the rape may not have happened after all. ‘‘We cannot state anything until we talk to the victim and thoroughly interrogate the accused,’’ said police DIG Karnal Singh. He added the victim was in a state of trauma and would be questioned at a later stage.
Though the incident allegedly occurred on May 17, the victim’s mother filed a formal complaint six days later on May 23. The victim reportedly is still on sedatives at a private hospital.
According to the complaint filed by the victim’s mother, she was drugged with a dope-laced cigarette. As per the complaint, the four youths, in collusion with canteen contractor Audhoot Dabholkar, took the victim to a toilet where they raped her. According to her mother, the girl reached home at 7.30 pm.
Though she was taken to the Goa Medical College hospital the next day, Singh said she did not make any statement hinting at the rape. The parents got her discharged from the GMC hospital and then readmitted her at the private hospital on May 20.
Meanwhile, police are hunting for yet another accused student who hails from Karnataka and might have left for his home state. The case has been handed over to the crime branch and two women police inspectors are handling the investigations.
Parrikar said a special medical team would be set up to investigate the case as the medical report of the 18-year-old victim raised several ‘‘doubts’’. Women’s groups are agitated over his statement.
The Oheraldo newspaper said in an editorial: ‘‘It is obvious that a massive cover-up is under way in the gang rape case to protect influential people. The official theory is that the victim had hallucinated the whole incident and the gang rape is a figment of her imagination. We are told that a police sub-inspector has been suspended because he would not register the complaint when the mother of the victim approached him on Thursday. By the same standards, should not DIG Karnal Singh be suspended for disclosing intimate details of the victim’s condition to imply that she had made up the whole story? If police sub-inspector was insensitive surely the DIG who is a highly educated technocrat — an IIT-ian — cannot be excused for his crudeness and utter boorishness.’’
