Ruchika case: Eye-witness claims CBI of not taking statement

Vijay Dheer, an owner of school and resident of Panchkula, claimed that he was an eye witness to the atrocities committed on Ashu by police allegedly on behalf of Rathore, who was sentenced in Ruchika Girhotra molestation case by a local court one year back.

"I was eye witness to the entire sequence of events when Ashu was handcuffed and paraded naked in our society by police," Dheer said.

"I told the CBI during my testimony about atrocities committed by Haryana police on Ashu and his inhuman torture," he said however, adding that the investigating agency ignored his testimony in its closure report.

Dheer, who was a neighbour of Girhotra family in 90's, said that "the CBI questioned me for around seven hours during its investigations, but the investigating agency did not incorporate my witness in its report."

"I told the CBI how Ashu was brought naked with handcuffs from market to the society in which we lived and tortured by police," he said.

The CBI had not mentioned his testimony in its report and ignored it completely, Dheer claimed.

The agency in its closure report before a special CBI court at Ambala recently is understood to have clearly mentioned that neither any neighbour or any shopkeeper in the vicinity of Girhotra family had testified before it that Ashu was harassed by police.

In its closure report, CBI had stated that the shopkeepers of market of Sector 6 Panchkula have stated that neither they heard nor saw Ashu being paraded by police in naked condition in December 1993.

The CBI in its report has also stated that neighbours of Girhotra also denied parading of Ashu.

Ruchika (14), a budding tennis player, committed suicide three years after being molested by Rathore on August 12,1990.