The chairperson of the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) Usha Negi has directed the Deputy Inspector General/Senior Superintendent of Police of Dehradun to find out the family of a girl who reportedly committed suicide earlier this month. Recently, the commission had called the officers from the police station handling the case to get a thorough picture of the matter.
On Friday, two sub-inspectors arrived in SCPCR and presented the details of the case before Negi. They informed that the police have filed a case against the couple with whom the victim was living for the last many years. Negi informed that as per the police, the purported victim was left by her father with the accused and his wife when the father was a guard in their rented house years back and since then, she was living with the family. The victim’s father had also left another daughter with the tenant of the house but she fled from there within a few days back to Bihar, as per Negi. According to the accused’s statement, the father did return to take his daughter back after around four years but the now dead daughter refused going back, stated Negi. She said the police informed that on the day the victim allegedly tried to commit suicide, she went to a temple at 4 AM on the advice of a man living in the same building when she told him she was feeling scared. The daughter of a woman working in the temple dropped her back to home around 7 AM when the victim told the family that she is feeling scared and hearing different types of noises, stated Negi. As per the police, the family decided to call a priest and sent the victim to her room to get ready but when she did not return soon, the husband and wife went to look and found out that the victim was hanging from a noose tied to the ceiling fan, informed Negi. The family managed to enter the room and brought the girl down and admitted her in a private hospital but later shifted her to another hospital as the first one was expensive for the family, as per the police information to the commission.
Subsequently, the victim died on November 8, informed Negi. Moreover, Negi said that staff at the private hospital where the victim was initially admitted has stated verbally that there was no indication of any kind of sexual assault or foul play when the victim was admitted there. However, she was disappointed that it was not considered crucial to take the advice of government doctors as the statements provided by private hospitals cannot be considered completely reliable in such matters. She has instructed authorities to ensure the involvement of government doctors in future cases. She has also directed the DIG/SSP to investigate all the people who talked or met the victim that day and also asked to find out about her father. She instructed him to submit the investigation report in commission within one month.
Sunday, 29 November 2020 | PNS | Dehradun
