Haryana: Parole granted to 3 men convicted for gang-rape & murder of 9-year-old

ROHTAK: The mother of the nine-year-old girl who was gangraped, tortured and murdered at Ateli, near Narnaul in Haryana’s Mahendragarh district on November 1, 2014, is living in fear after the three men convicted for the crime have been released on parole.
These three convicts were granted parole in August-end for three weeks by the Gurgaon divisional commissioner by exercising special powers under the Haryana Good Conduct Prisoner (Temporary Release) Act, 1988. The period of parole has been extended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

They were granted parole despite the Mahendragarh district magistrate not recommending their release in his report of August 17, 2020. “The district magistrate has not given sufficient reason for declining the furlough in his report,” the release warrant said and added that the “releasing authority was satisfied that the applicant is entitled to be released under the Act.” The convicts were given furlough against a Rs 2 lakh surety bond.
The district magistrate and superintendent jail are not authorities to grant parole/furlough to those convicted for heinous offences of murder, dacoity, rape with murder, dowry, dowry death cases and NDPS Act.
Victim’s mom living in fear of covicts’ release
Sources in the district jail at Bhondsi in Gurgaon district confirmed that all the three convicts are out on parole.
The three men had been sentenced to death penalty by the fast-track court of Narnaul additional sessions judge RK Dogra in January 2017. Their death sentence was, however, commuted in December 2018 by the Punjab and Haryana high court’s division bench of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill to 20-year rigorous imprisonment without any remission.
Advocate SP Yadav, who had argued the family’s case in the high court, told TOI that the high court had categorically stated that no remission or relaxation can be given to the convicts for 20 years of jail. “I can’t comprehend as how the convicts of rape and murder have been given parole,” he said and added that they are working on details of how they were granted parole despite the HC judgment.
The distraught mother of the gangrape and murder victim told TOI that she has been living in constant fear after she learnt that the convicts have been released. “They live in the same village where I live and hearing from people that now they are roaming outside freely, laughing, enjoying their lives gives me a sense of lack of justice for my innocent daughter,” she said.
The woman lost her husband soon after the gangrape and murder of her daughter. “I am living alone and working as an outsourced employee in a government office. I have no one to support me. What if, out of vengeance they come out to attack me?” she asked and added that no one from local police or from the district administration had reviewed her security concerns or sought her consent for the parole.
“After seeing them behind the bars for the brutal gangrape and murder of my daughter in 2017, I had barely started leading a normal life. Now their parole is giving me nightmares,” she added.
The gangrape and murder of the nine-year-old had shocked the district so much that civil society of Narnaul had come out on roads and protested to seek justice . It was only after the protests that the three convicts were arrested. Referring to the Nirbhaya gangrape case, the girl’s mother said that people come to offer support during hype but later forget about such incidents and the benefits are ultimately drawn by the criminals.