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Did media fabricate Murthal gang-rapes issue? Police says no sexual assault took place during Jat quota stir
Abhishek Garg, The Superintendent of Police, Sonepat, has taken pains to submit a detailed report to DGP, Haryana on the alleged gang-rape of at least 10 women by goons in Murthal during the Jat quota stir.
The investigation was in response to a Tribune article of 24 February alleging that women passengers on the national highway near Murthal, Sonepat, were stopped in the early hours of Monday, 22 February, dragged into the the nearby fields and gang-raped. The report quoted village elders Hari Krishan of Kurad, Zile Singh of Hassanpur and dhaba owner Jai Bhagwan confirming the assaults. Video footage of women's clothes strewn around the fields is also doing the rounds. The Jat quota stir has claimed 30 lives of which 18 were Jats and 12 of people from other communities.
Taking suo moto cognizance of the alleged crime, the Punjab and Haryana High Court ordered asked the Haryana government to reply. In response, the Haryana government has called for a probe. It is required to submit its reply on Monday, 29 February.
The police report, a copy of which is available with Firstpost, gives a chronological sequence of the events as they occurred, in which no evidence is found of a single incident of rape and sexual assault of the nature described in the media. All three key sources in The Tribune story, while admitting that some journalists from Delhi had visited them and made enquiries, denied both the occurrence of any such incident, or having confirmed the occurrence of either sexual assault or gang-rape to the journalists. They have all expressed shock at the publishing of such a completely false report by the newspaper.
The report states that the police further contacted Parveen Arora, one of the journalists who wrote the report on his mobile phone and asked him if he had spoken to or met any victims. Parveen Arora denied having spoken to any victim or victim's family and maintained that his story was based on the statements of the three persons named in the story.
A team led by the National Commission for Women (NCW) Member, Rekha Sharma, visited the crime scene on 24 February. The team has said it contacted 8 families and six truck drivers and cleaners whose vehicles were damaged and set ablaze by the mob around the same time as the alleged rapes but all of them denied either having been sexually assaulted or having witnessed any gang-rape.
Both the NCW and the police have asked any victims to come forward but no one has done so.
However, an RTI activist, PP Kapoor, reportedly claims to have spoken to four eyewitnesses who confirmed that the mob had dragged the women into the fields, torn their clothes and made sexual advances towards them. But even these witnesses apparently stopped short of using the 'rape' word. Yet, Kapoor and the NCW have reportedly alleged that the rape victims were too fearful of the police to come forward.
When questioned, Garg dismissed this allegation. "We are registering every small case of arson or loot in the local area. If these people are not afraid to approach us, why would alleged rape victims who live in Delhi and can afford there own vehicles, and seem to be empowered in every manner, be afraid to approach the Haryana police and register their complaint?” he told Firstpost.
CCTV footage obtained from Amrik Sukhdev Dhaba, now in the possession of the police, also does not show any women with torn clothes present there at the time the incident allegedly took place. Video footage along 200 metres of the alleged crime scene shows damaged and charred vehicles but no torn female garments strewn on the road.
Despite the lack of complainants, witnesses or evidence and the multiple enquiries suggesting that the incident never took place at all, Yashpal Singhal, DGP (Haryana), who gave a press briefing on Friday, repeatedly affirmed that the probe will not stop and complainants should feel secure in coming to the Police to ensure their tormentors are nabbed.
