Now for the rest

Visuals of former Haryana Director General of Police S.P.S. Rathore being led to prison after being handed down a one and a half year sentence for molesting Ruchika Girhotra in 1990 are a refreshing change from the smirk that accompanied his earlier six-month sentence which entitled him to immediate bail. Rathores punishment almost 20 years too late despite intense media and public pressure brings some finality to his crime,but raises other questions. What happened to Ruchika and her family was so much beyond a solitary act of molestation. It was years and years of harassment,culminating in Ruchikas 1993 suicide. One way to make Rathore pay for that was to book him for abetting her suicide a charge which the CBI did not press and which was eventually rejected by the high court on a technicality. The Haryana governments belated filing of an abetment to suicide FIR this January wont erase the earlier omission.

Who else is to blame? The Haryana chief minister at the time Ruchika was molested was Hukam Singh an associate of Om Prakash Chautala. His administration refused to even file an FIR. Subsequent CMs Bhajan Lal and Bansi Lal continued to advance Rathores career,despite Rathore being indicted by the then DGP,despite the Haryana chief secretary recommending action,and despite the CBI filing charges against him. While today Haryanas politicians are vying to distance themselves from the tainted cop,their compli-city must be accounted for. So must the casualness with which bureaucrats and other policemen failed to protect Ruchika and her family from sustained harassment and false legal cases.

Ruchika was disowned not just by the powers that be,but by her support group. Her school,Sacred Heart Convent,removed her on a minor pretext; even today they refuse to acknowledge their mistake. It is these accomplices political,administrative and educational of Rathore whose turn it is now to face the heat. Under normal circumstances,a commission of inquiry would be in order. But such is the faith in even this mode of fact-finding that uncovering the dank truth might be another 20-year wait.