RJD leaders booked for forcing minor gangrape victim to narrate her ordeal

Many leaders of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), including its National General Secretary Alok Kumar Mehta and MLA Surendra Yadav, have been booked for allegedly forcing a minor gang rape victim to get down from a police vehicle and narrate her ordeal, a senior police official said today.

RJD is the principal opposition party in Bihar.

TV footage showed some RJD leaders clicking photographs with the girl on their mobile phones and also preparing videos.

The alleged incident happened on Friday when an RJD fact-finding team confronted the police when the latter was taking the minor to a hospital for medical examination. The leaders allegedly forced her to get down from the police vehicle and narrate her ordeal, besides making her identity public, Magadh Range Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Vinay Kumar said.

The fact-finding team was constituted by Tejaswi Yadav, the Leader of Opposition in Bihar Vidhan Sabha.

On June 14, a group of armed youths tied the minor's father to a tree and raped her and her mother in Gaya district of the state.

The family was waylaid while it was crossing the area on a motorcycle near Sondiha village under Konch police station. Following this, the station house officer was suspended and 20 youths were detained.

An FIR was lodged against Mehta, RJD MLA from Belaganj Surendra Prasad Yadav, the party's state president of women's cell Abhalata, RJD's district president Murshid Alam alias Nezam, district president of RJD's women's cell Sarswati Devi and other unnamed persons in the case, the DIG said.

The case was lodged with Medical Police Station under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, he said.

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The officer added that they have also been booked for creating obstruction in discharge of duty by police officials in the case.

Mehta, a former Bihar minister, however, termed the allegations against him and the team as "false" and claimed they were intended to divert people's attention from the case.

"This is an attempt to divert people's attention from the case in order to protect the accused by the state government. The allegations leveled against me are false," he told PTI.

Accusing the police of delaying action so as to cover up the case, Mehta asked, "Why did the police take the victim for her medical examination 38 hours after the crime, instead of getting it done within 24 hours?"

He also claimed that RJD leaders did not ask the victim to get down from the vehicle. He said the team requested the girl for some information but she became angry after seeing reporters.

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Meanwhile, DIG Kumar said the state women commission has sought a report from the police in this regard.

On Friday, a team form the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), Patna visited the crime spot to collect samples and evidence in the case.

The FSL team also collected the clothes of both the victims and the arrested suspects for scientific investigation in the case, Kumar said.

Three persons have been arrested so far, the DIG said, adding that two of them- Shivam Sharma and Gaurav Sharma-are residents of Sonediha village while the third person, Dipak Paswan, hails from Manglore, a neighbouring village.

The police have set up three teams to investigate the case, and a chargesheet is likely to be filed soon.

Besides this, the police will make a formal plea before the court for a speedy trial in the case, the DIG said.

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