Step father rapes daughter for four years, Cops file challan within five days
Ravi Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service
Pathankot, November 7
In an incident which had enraged residents, a middle aged man kept on raping his step-daughter for four years before she gathered enough courage to speak out and file a police complaint against the “atrocities and sexual harassment” faced by her.
SSP Gulneet Singh Khurana said that the arrest of the accused within hours of the 17 year old minor girl approaching the police had acted as a balm on the livid residents and relatives of the girl.
NGOs, social organizations and women welfare groups had planned a series of protests but these failed to take off after the cops showed alacrity in completing the probe within four days and subsequently submitting the challan in the court of the ilaqa Magistrate on the fifth day.
Officers admitted that the recent Hoshiarpur incident in which a minor daughter of a Dalit family was raped, killed and later her body being set on fire played on their mind.
“The CM and DGP had ordered the Hoshiarpur cops to file a challan within a week which was done. We, too, had to act promptly. This incident had sparked off an outrage in Punjab. We did not want to have a similar thing happening here,” said SSP Khurana.
Once the girl filed her complaint at Nangal Bhoor police station, SHO Deepak Kumar immediately informed his seniors including the SSP.
The SSP appointed DSP Rajinder Manhas as the supervisory officer while the inquiry was entrusted to the SHO.
The probe revealed that the accused Kans Ram of Mirthal village near Pathankot used to indulge in the heinous crime after giving strong sedatives to the mother of the girl. A few years ago the mother had divorced her husband and had re-married. “Kans Ram was running a small time footwear shop in the village while his wife worked as a domestic help. He had purchased sedatives in bulk. The mother told us that she always suspected that something was wrong but she could not fathom what exactly it was. She poured her heart out to some of her close relatives who decided to keep a watch on Kans Ram. Recently they found him soliciting the girl to his room and that acted as a trigger to approach the police. The relatives took the girl to the police station where she narrated her tale of woes,” said DSP Manhas.
The police took just four days to complete the inquiry following which sections 376 (Rape) and 506 IPC (criminal intimation) and POSCO Act, 2012 (sexual assault on a child) was clamped on the accused. The very next day, the challan was filed paving the way for the trial to commence.
