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Monday 31 December 2012

South Delhi SDM complains police interfered while recording gangrape victim's statement

New Delhi, Dec 25: The sub-divisional magistrate of South Delhi has complained to her higher-up Deputy Commissioner that Delhi Police officials interfered and misbehaved with her while she was recording the gangrape victim's statement  in Safdarjang Hospital.
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has asked Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde to order a “high-level independent inquiry” into the “interference” by top police officials when an executive magistrate sought to record the 23-year-old gangrape victim’s statement at Safdarjung Hospital on Saturday.
In her note to Shinde on Monday, Dikshit has cited a letter sent to her by Deputy Commissioner (East) B M Mishra on Saturday following a complaint from Sub-Divisional Magistrate (Vivek Vihar) Usha Chaturvedi in this regard.

According to Mishra’s letter, Chaturvedi faced “interference” from “ACPs and DCP of Delhi Police, while recording the statement of the rape victim”. Dikshit noted that the contents of the SDM’s complaint and Mishra’s letter were “alarming and serious”.

Following is the text of her letter:

"Respected Sir,


The undersigned went to Safdarjang Hospital  to record the statement of rape victim.  DCP,  South, ACP Vasant Vihar and ACP Defence Colony were present alongwith a huge entourage of police personnel .

They showed a copy of questions and asked me to record the facts.

The brief was far from the actual event of night of crime as discovered from statement of victims .

They tried to pressurise me and when I refused they misbehaved and tried to intimidate me. Finally I was able to start recording after forcibly evicting police personnel."

Sd/-Usha Chaturvedi

Sub Divisional Magistrate"

Chaturvedi has also claimed that the briefing she got from these police officials, based on the statement of the victim’s friend and their investigations, did not match the victim’s actual statement.

“They tried to pressurise me to record the statement as per their convenience and when I refused, they misbehaved and tried to intimidate me.

Also, a huge amount of time was wasted over the issue of videography during the recording of the statement of the victim as the police were trying to dissuade me from doing this.

Finally, the videography was not carried out as the mother of the victim refused the same,” wrote Chaturvedi.
She said that she was finally “able to start the recording of the statement of the victim at around 8 pm after forcibly evicting the police personnel from the ICU”.

Mishra had already sent a copy of Chaturvedi’s complaint to Lieutenant Governor Tejendra Khanna, the Home Secretary and the Chief Secretary of Delhi.

Source:  http://www.indiatvnews.com/crime/news/south-delhi-sdm-complains-police-interfered-while-recording-gang-2258.html

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