As the year 2015 is about to end, two stark, sensational incidents that took place in the State during the year come up prominently in a reckoning. Of the two episodes, one is of alleged rape/ abortion of a speech and hearing impaired inmate of Nari Niketan, a State-run shelter home of the distressed women, and the other is of Ruby Choudhary staying in the well-fortified lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (lBSNAA) campus clandestinely for over six months in Mussoorie. They are similar in one aspect, as in both cases, the big fishes are at large with the small fry being brought to the book. Both triggered outrage and anguish across the State as well as the country for the reckless nature of the crimes.
However, police claimed to have solved these two cases. While in Ruby Choudhary case, charge-sheet was filed in court in that of Nari Niketan, 8 persons, including former superintendent of Nari Niketan, Meenakshi Pokhriyal and teachers, home guard, and Chowkidar, were arrested. Charge-sheet will soon be filed in court in latter case too, police said.
However, people are far from convinced. They take the police version of the cases being solved with skepticism, as they wonder how such incidents could have occurred sans the complicity or even active involvement of the senior officials posted in both these high security institutions. leave alone public, a section of police officers and police personnel who are investigating the case of Ruby staying in the lBSNAA posing as an IAS probationer are finding it difficult to digest the theory of the lady doing it on her own.
“It is incredible. The SIT members pleading their failure to step on others who could have facilitated her clandestine stay do not carry conviction. She even attended the programme where President of India Pranab Mukherjee figured in December last year. She while being grilled said the deputy director of the academy had played an instrumental role in her staying there in lieu of money. But the SIT failed to nail him. As things stand now, case would remain one among the unsolved cases contradicting the police version,” one of them said who insisted on anonymity. The same skepticism hangs over the Nari Niketan case as things seem far from being resolved despite police rounding up a number of persons associated with the shelter home.
Things are still on the boil with the principal Opposition party BJP and social activists carrying on with their stirs to have the main characters nailed. BJP leaders had met Uttarakhand Governor KK Paul recently and submitted a memorandum, demanding judicial inquiry or CBI inquiry into the incident. leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Ajay Bhatt said that the police have failed to find out the main accused in both the cases.
“Arrests of contractual employees like chowkidar are a ruse to shield real criminals. Maybe, high profile people have right contacts with the right people. But if they are allowed to get away, leaving the lesser mortals to face the music is a travesty of justice,” said an observer.