Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru (MS)
Mangaluru, Jun 22: The POCSO court of the city ordered inspector A C Lokesh and his team of personnel of women police station of Mangaluru to pay Rs five lac compensation to two people who were kept in prison for months on the accusation of sexual assault case of minor.
Additional district and sessions court judge justice K M Radhakrishna noticed many serious short comings in the police investigation of the case. The important one was that the police gave clean chit three other accused in the case even before receiving the DA report.
The court verdict says that Sandesh, who was earlier accused of sexually assaulting her by the victim girl was wilfully neglected by the investigating officer. His blood samples for DNA test were not collected in order to save him from the crime. The victim girl had changed her statement several times before accusing her own father of sexual assault.
At the end of the inquiry, the court received the DNA report. According to the DNA report, including the father of the victim girl, none of the three accused in the FIR were the father of the foetus of the minor girl.
The court said that the investigating police officer has filed a blind charge sheet with ulterior motive against the father of the victim girl. Justice Radhakrishna opined that the investigating officer and his team have actually done the discrepancy for their selfish motives and they are a curse to the society.
In the process of protecting the real accused, the police officer and team made innocent people as accused and gave them mental torture. Father of the victim girl and a daily wage labourer are made sacrificial lambs by the investigating officer. They were kept in prison for eight and two months respectively.
The investigating officer and his team are ordered to pay Rs four lac to the father of the victim girl and Rs one lac to Prasad, a daily wage labourer. The court opined that this verdict will be a lesson to those corrupt officers who get involved in such atrocities.
The justice also asked chief secretary of home department and city police commissioner of Mangaluru to take necessary action on the erring police team.