Man who stabbed Rathore acquitted
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 14
Five years after former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore was stabbed by a youth outside the district courts (then located in Sector 17), a local court today acquitted 33-year-old Utsav Sharma after the prosecution failed to prove the charges.
Utsav Sharma, hailing from Varanasi, was then a student of the prestigious National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.
As per the prosecution case, Utsav Sharma was apparently upset over the "light sentence" awarded to Rathore in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case. At that time, Rathore was sentenced to six-month imprisonment in the case. It was later that the sentence was enhanced to one and a half years following an appeal. The incident occurred on February 9, 2010, when Rathore, who appeared in the court in connection with a CBI appeal to increase his sentence, was left with a bleeding right cheek but no serious injuries. He returned to the court smiling from the hospital two hours after the attack, with a bandage on his cheek and bloodstains on his clothes.
The accused, Utsav, had been waiting outside the court since morning pretending to be a photojournalist. He lunged towards Rathore with a small knife as the latter emerged for lunch at 1.30 pm. He struck Rathore thrice before policemen could overpower him.
Defence counsel Harish Bhardawaj said while Rathore had identified the accused in the court, no identification parade was conducted and there were several police lapses in the case which led to his acquittal.
“The police have registered the FIR after a delay of over two hours and this anomaly came to the fore during the court hearing of the case. Rathore was rushed to the hospital at around 2 pm and till around 4.30 pm, the police had not registered an FIR as they kept waiting fro Rathore to get his statements recorded.
“Rathore had also asked the police then as to why they waited for him for so long and could have registered the FIR. The police had then registered the FIR in back time and a constable had deposed in the court during cross-examination that they were late in registering the FIR. Thus several police lapses in the case led to the acquittal,” said Bhardawaj.
Utsav hailed from Varanasi. His father SK Sharma is a professor in Benaras Hindu University's Department of Mechanical Engineering.
At the time of registration of the case, Utsav's parents had told the police that he suffered from a mental disorder and also brought with themselves medical reports but no such thing was put forward before the court.
