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This is really serious issue
3rd Dec 1999 neeraj chaturvedi @hotmail.com
Hi innMates, I feel frustrated after reading this news ... I will like to make this issue public. I am going to write letters to all newspapers and magazines and planning similar other things ... I will like all of you to protest it as much as possible in your limits. rgds neeraj ***************************************************** http://www.timesofindia.com/041299/04home6.htm ***************************************************** Times of India Judge accuses CBI of fudging murder case By A Staff Reporter NEW DELHI: A city court on Friday acquitted Santosh Kumar Singh, accused of raping and killing Priyadarshini Mattoo in 1996, saying the investigating agency, the CBI, had wilfully made a weak case. ``Though I know he is the man who committed the crime, I acquit him, giving him the benefit of the doubt,'' the judge announced in the court teeming with lawyers, mediapersons, relatives and friends of the accused. Additonal sessions judge G P Thareja said: ``The influence of the father of the accused has been there and there was deliberate inaction by the police.'' The father, J P Singh, is a senior police officer currently posted in Pondicherry as an inspector-general. The rule of law doesn't seem to be applicable to the relatives of those who enforce it, he observed. Holding the CBI ``responsible for such an end of the trial'' the judge said it ``created holes in the proof of the case'' by withholding evidence and a key witness from the court during the trial. ``As far as the charge of rape is concerned, I am convinced the CBI manipulated the DNA technology to implicate the accused,'' the judge said. And about the murder charge, he said, ``the CBI kept away the evidence and a witness to favour the defence.'' The accused, Singh (27), who came to the court in a brown pullover and dark trousers, showed no emotions when the judge announced his acquittal. But his father broke into tears. He walked to the judge and bowed before him with folded hands. No one from the victim's family was present in the court, nor could they be contacted at their residence. Priyadarshini Mattoo (22), a sixth-semester law student, was allegedly raped and murdered by the accused on January 23, 1996, in her house in Vasant Kunj. Singh had passed out from the same department in 1994. Mattoo had lodged several complaints against him at different police stations in Delhi, saying she was being stalked and harassed by him. She was then given a personal security officer. The accused had in retaliation lodged a complaint with the university alleging she is pursuing M.Com and LLB courses simultaneously. And he personally pursued the matter and sent two reminders to the authorities regarding his complaint. Responding to a show-cause notice, Priyadarshini said she had passed M.Com in 1991 and the complaint was malicious. However, her fifth-semester result was withheld because of the complaint. The court noted that on the pretext of striking a compromise, the accused entered her house, where he allegedly raped her, strangled her with an electric wire and then battered her face beyond recognition with a helmet. In a major part of the order, which runs into 454 pages, the judge criticised the ``experts'' who conducted the DNA test, which are quite crucial in such cases. The ``experts'' findings, he said, were shoddy and they had not even followed the basic test protocol at a reputed DNA lab in Hyderabad. This was what defence counsel R K Naseem had argued. ``The court came to a juncture where it wanted to know whether it should exercise its power to order the CBI to produce the evidence and witness (which it withheld) ... but it was felt the court would then be discharging the role of prosecution, which is not fair,'' he noted. And then he wondered aloud if the children of law enforcers feel encouraged to break the law only because they think their parents are after all the ones to enforce the law? *************************************************************
