Justice eludes miscarriage victim

JALANDHAR: Even as the magisterial inquiry by the Nawanshahr administration had absolved the district police of any lathicharge incident on SC/OBC students on March 26, it is a clean chit for the Jalandhar Police too in the March 22 illegal detention of education service provider Rajni, who suffered a miscarriage.

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 24

Even as the magisterial inquiry by the Nawanshahr administration had absolved the district police of any lathicharge incident on SC/OBC students on March 26, it is a clean chit for the Jalandhar Police too in the March 22 illegal detention of education service provider Rajni, who suffered a miscarriage.

Instead of establishing any correlation with the harassment and trauma that she faced on account of her being rounded up by the police, a medical board, set up on the directions of the National SC Commission, has rather pointed out that the victim had a similar medical history and she did not follow the advice of doctors for bed rest and her abortion was inevitable.

The report of the doctors reads, “As per record, patient Rajni is already a case of previous two spontaneous abortions (in 2012 and 2014). In the present case, she was already showing symptoms of threatened abortion and inadequate foetal growth for which she was advised bed rest, which she did not comply with. Her ultrasound on March 23 showed missed abortion with foetal growth of 8.6 weeks. This was inevitable.” The clean chit to the cops comes with more blames for the victim in the report. “She went for consultation at Vasudev Maternity Clinic on March 3. She was advised bed rest and some medication. According to Rajni, she did not take leave from school and continued to attend her duty travelling by scooter,” the report says.

The incident of her rounding up by the police only has a cursory mention, but again with more fingers against the victim. “On March 22, Rajni was summoned to the local police station where she went with her husband. She stayed at the police station for about two hours and then returned home. That evening, she suffered bleeding, but she did not take any treatment or consult a doctor. Next day, she went for consultation to Vasudev Maternity Clinic. According to Dr K Vasudev, Rajni did not report for any follow-up till March 23 when she came with the complaints of bleeding and ultrasound done on the same day showed missed abortion. She opted for medical abortion and rest for three days,” the report says. Rajni’s family is distraught at the turn of the events. Her father-in-law Hukam Singh Uppal said, “It has been a completely unfair probe. This is complete injustice with us to shelter the police. I met the Civil Surgeon and the chairman of the medical board this afternoon but we got no convincing reply”.

Civil Surgeon Dr RL Bassan passed on the buck to District Welfare Officer Dr Gurmeet Kaur, who headed the three-member panel that also included Dr Sangeeta Kapoor, gynaecologist, and Dr Kashmiri Lal, medical specialist. Dr Gurmeet Kaur said, “The issue is being confused. As per the Police Commissioner’s direction, we were asked only to conduct a medical examination. So we traced her history and took the doctor’s statement and reported accordingly”.

Dr Raj Kumar Verka, Vice-Chairman, National SC Commission, said, “I have just got the report. I have not studied it well so far. But from what I have gauged, it still provides sequence that led to the tragic incident. I have so many times told the police to get an FIR lodged against the erring cops, but they have failed in doing the same. I am in the process of summoning the Police Commissioner in the case.”