The father of a 13-year old rape victim, who supposedly was under police protection, was stabbed. What is more pathetic is that while the victim lay in a pool of blood, nobody from the locality came to his help. On Wednesday, police arrested three people in this connection; however, the victim claims that those arrested are hired goons, the real culprits have not been even touched.
The case goes back to September 2011, when the victim’s daughter Shabnam (name changed) was raped by Syed Shakil, her father's apprentice and distant relative. The family never came to know about this till Shabnam was pregnant and delivered a baby in April this year in an autorickshaw while being taken to hospital. Soon after this, a case was filed against Sayed Shakil and he faced at least seven years jail term or life imprisonment for the rape of a minor. The case is under trial. This was only the beginning of trials for the family, that has since been ostracised by the community. Later, the girl's school forced her out of school. However, the High Court made it clear on Wednesday that the girl shall continue her studies in the same school even if other students of the school quit. With Sayed Shakil facing life imprisonment, his family member and friends started harassing the family, even threatening to kill the father of the girl, if he did not let his daughter marry the rapist. Till now, the father was against this.
According to the advocates of the girl’s father, J.D. Srinivas and A.D. Ramanand, police informed the father on August 23 itself that his life was under threat. He had also informed police that he had received several threats from relatives and friend of Syed, who had told him that they had hired people to get him murdered. In his complaint, he had named Saleem, Ameen, Anzar, Thabraz, Halav, Takali, Shafiulla, Sadakath, Chandpasha, Najju, Nizar, Niyaz and other associates from the mosque at Ramachandrapuram. Police did not take any action. Even on the fateful night of September 2 while Mr Karim lay in a pool of blood, nobody came to help the family. Not one to give up the fight, Mr Karim filed a complaint against several people, including Srirampura police.
“Where were they on the evening? They were supposed to have been guarding the victim, but the day the attack happened, they left the house and went away,” the advocates questioned. Advocate A.D. Ramanand alleged that when he went to meet the girl's father in the hospital, the investigating officer even threatened him of an attack.