How police goofed-up Vibgyor rape case probe

Lack of coordination among senior police officers and proper guidance to subordinates are said to be the reasons for the City police bungling the investigation into the rape of a six-year-old girl at Vibgyor High school in Marathalli.

The police had initially said that the skating instructor Mustafa, who was arrested on July 20, alone had raped the girl on July 2. But on Tuesday, Police Commissioner M N Reddi announced at a press conference that two gym instructors Wasim Pasha and Lal Giri had gang-raped the girl on July 3 and Mustafa was not directly involved.

While explaining the reasons for the goof-up, sources in the police department said that the investigations were directionless since the beginning. The investigation team was constituted in a hurry by drawing several officers. But these officers were not assigned specific tasks. Besides, at least three IPS officers were directly supervising the probe and there was reportedly no coordination between them. This, the sources claimed, led to confusion among subordinate officers involved in the probe. Some hasty decisions were taken even without proper analysis of the evidences, the sources said.

During the initial days of probe, senior officers hushed up the arrest and subsequent release of Wasim and Lal Giri. They were first arrested on July 15, but were not produced before the court for two days.

The police used the provisions under Section 169 of the Criminal Procedure Code which says accused can be released when evidence is deficient, sources said.

The police only ascertained that Wasim was a close friend of Mustafa, but failed to prove the direct involvement of Wasim and Lal Giri in the rape. The police ‘imagined’ Mustafa’s involvement based on Wasim’s statements about his antecedents and took Mustafa into custody. They concluded that Mustafa had raped the girl, particularly after finding child pornography videos on his laptops, said a police inspector who had interrogated Mustafa.

However, police had a tough time in justifying Mustafa’s arrest as he repeatedly claimed innocence and even dared the police to prove his involvement with evidences. Mustafa claimed that he was not at all present at 11 am on July 2 as well as July 3 at the school and had records to prove it. He alleged that Lal Giri and Wasim were actually involved in the rape as they frequently shared matters related to women and sex. It was then, the police decided to re-arrest Lal Giri and Wasim, the inspector added.

Mustafa’s father Murtuza blamed the police for wrongly implicating his son. “Nobody would offer him a job now. We have not seen him for the last two weeks. We are waiting for our son to return. We are poor and are not in a position to wage a legal war against the police for their act,” he told Deccan Herald.