“He is actually being arrested and sent to jail!” an unbelieving Subhash Chander Girhotra exulted when additional sessions judge Gurbir Singh read out the operative portion of the verdict in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case.
“Yes, this evil man tormented and drove my daughter to her death and there could be no possible retribution for that. Yet I am feeling a sense of great satisfaction because it is Ruchika’s spirit that has brought down a powerful man like Rathore.”
Literally mobbed by reporters and television crews outside court, the original complainants in the Ruchika molestation case, Anand and Madhu Prakash, were ecstatic.
“In cutting a man like Rathore to size albeit after 20 years, the judge has given a loud and clear message that now even the rich and the powerful shall have to step in line and obey the law,” said Mr Prakash, whose daughter and Ruchika’s best friend, was the lone eyewitness to the traumatic molestation in 1990.
Vindicated after relentlessly pursuing Rathore, both in courts and outside, the couple said, “Today’s verdict is also important because it reaffirms that truth always prevails in the end especially when common people come together and stand together.”
But Mr Girhotra believes today’s verdict is only the first step to final justice. “We have filed three other cases where Rathore is accused of abetment to suicide, attempt to murder, criminal intimidation amongst 22 other sections of the IPC. I am now confident that we will get justice in those cases also.”
“It’s a victory for the common man,” said Aradhana Gupta, the only witness in Ruchika molestation case.
peaking from Sydney, Ruchika’s friend, Ms Gupta said, it is all due to public support that Ruchika has got justice.
“I am so happy about it. I really appreciate the judiciary for putting Rathore behind the bar. But certainly I am not very happy because we were expecting two years as the crime was committed by a police official and not by a commoner,” Ms Gupta said.
Currently under investigation by the CBI, chargesheets in the three fresh FIRs.