Noida: A 40-year-old man was arrested on Monday for conniving with a school headmaster to prepare fake age proofs and get bail for his son, an accused in the rape and murder of his 17-year-old cousin.
The accused had produced fake class 8 marksheets, issued by a private school in Kanpur, for his son to show he was a minor — 16 years old — at the time of the crime in 2016 and had got the case transferred to the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), which could significantly reduce his jail term from life imprisonment under IPC section 302 (murder) and Pocso Act sections to just three years under the JJ Act.
The girl's mother, however, produced counter-proofs — his class 12 marksheet from Kanpur inter-college — which showed her nephew was born on July 10, 1997, and was 19 years old at the time of the crime.
According to cops, the 17-year-old girl was alone at her rented house in Greater Noida's Sector Ecotech 3 on March 15, 2016, when her cousin, a resident of Delhi's Mandawali, came in for a visit and raped her. The accused strangled her with a scarf when she tried to call for help and threw her body in an adjacent vacant plot.
The accused was caught by his aunt, who allegedly walked into the house, just as he was about to escape. He was subsequently detained by police from Ecotech-3 PS the same day and sent to Luksar jail.
On Oct 1 last year, the case was transferred to the JJB after defence counsel submitted before the district court in Surajpur that the accused was a minor at the time of the crime and should be tried under the JJ Act.
During age verification proceedings, the accused told the JJB that he was born on Feb 10, 2000, and had passed class 8 from a private school in Kanpur. His father submitted a marksheet as evidence and the school's headmaster, Nathu Ram Singh, confirmed his date of birth.
The girl's mother contested this and stated Kumar's actual date of birth was July 10, 1997, and he had completed class 12 from a Kanpur inter-college. JJB member magistrate Arun Kumar Gupta said the woman provided academic records showing her nephew's year of birth as 1997. She claimed the accused's father submitted forged documents to show him as a minor. Gupta said the JJB directed the headmaster to produce attendance records and marksheets related to the accused, but the headmaster claimed they were unavailable as they were "destroyed by termites".
The JJB found fake documents were submitted by the accused's father in connivance with the principal and ordered police to file a case under IPC sections 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery committed with the intent to cheat), and 471 (using a forged document or electronic record as genuine) against the two men.
The Phase 2 police station filed the case on Oct 9 last year. Cases filed under IPC as BNS came into effect from July 1, 2024. "After a year-long search, police arrested the father of the accused from Kanpur and presented him before the court. The headmaster is yet to be arrested," Phase 2 SHO Vindyachal Tiwari said.