In yet another horrific incident a 16-year-old minor girl named Meena (name changed) was brutally raped and murdered in Jamui district, Bihar on May 26. The incident gained significance after several members of the Akhil Bharatiya Kshatriya (Rajput) Mahasabha started protesting against the Bihar police alleging negligence in handling the case.
A group of members of the Mahasabha accompanied by several villagers assembled in Kachhar Chowk in Jamui on May 8 to sit on an indefinite hunger strike demanding justice for Meena. While addressing the dharna (sit-in protest), Sanjeev Kumar Singh said that a Special Investigative Team (SIT) should be formed to probe the case at the earliest.
The protestors further demanded that the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police should fast track the process and ensure that the culprits are brought to justice.
The Kshatriya Mahasabha’s State General Secretary Vishal Singh and Vinod Yadav said that the victim’s family should be provided police protection as the family was allegedly receiving threats to withdraw the case. They also demanded a compensation of Rs 3 lakh for the victim’s family.
A day before, dozens of people from Jain Sangharsh Samiti had also met the victim’s family and assured justice. They too had blamed the police for not giving importance to the case. Moreover, a member of the Samiti also handed over a demand letter to the District Development Officer, Dharmaveer Kumar Prabhakar demanding immediate action against the perpetrators.
The Convenor said that the police-administration should soon arrest the accused and provided compensation of Rs five lakh to the victim’s family. If no such action is taken by the administration, then the members of the Jana Sangharsh Samiti would be forced to agitate, and that the district administration would be held responsible for it, said the letter.
The protestors have alleged that the police were trying to shield the accused and the passiveness that was being adopted in the inquiry was because the authorities were trying to play vote bank politics. Further alleging that the police was not taking any concrete steps to arrest the miscreants the members of the Rajput Mahasabha said that they would take up the matter with the Chief Minister.
Meena was brutally raped and murdered on May 26 after she went out of her house to defecate around 8 am. The family became suspicious when Meena did not return home for long. Her mother Mamata Devi and sister Shabnam looked around in adjoining areas but could not find her. Later the villagers informed that a teenage girl’s dead body was lying nearby. When the family reached the spot they identified her as Meena. Her face had been mercilessly smashed with a rock as she lied there in cold blood.
We have earlier too reported various such cases where the police have delayed action due to its biases.
Recently, in the Aligarh murder case, wherein a two-and-a-half-years-old Tina (name changed) in Aligarh’s Tappal, the Uttar Pradesh, was brutally murdered, the SIT had taken action against the concerned SHO for delinquency. The DG had said that action was being taken against the police officials for negligence.
In April we had reported how Mumbai Police had reportedly not only declined to mention Akhtar Sheikh’s name in the FIR but also ignored invoking the crucial POCSO. Akhtar Sheikh was accused of raping a minor girl in Ghatkopar, Mumbai.
Swarjya an online news portal had then identified two more such biased cases, one from New Delhi and one from Uttar Pradesh — where minor girls were kidnapped in a similar way but the police, in both cases, refused to add the accused’s name and POCSO ACT in the FIRs.
