Gangrape victim lodged in Bihar jail granted bail

A lower court in Bihar on Friday granted bail to a gangrape victim who was recently sent to jail in a contempt case.

Top lawyers of the country had protested Araria's Chief Judicial Magistrate's decision to send the victim to Dalsinghsarai jail, around 250 kms from Araria. The lawyers had petitioned to the Chief Justice of Patna High Court highlighting the case and the hearing in the HC was likely today.

However, as the hearing in the High Court was deferred on Friday, a special hearing took place in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Araria, where the magistrate granted bail to the gangrape victim. He, however, denied bail to two of her caregivers, who have also been lodged in Dalsinghsarai jail in the same contempt case.

"While recording her statement on July 10 under Section 164, the learned magistrate perceived her disoriented state of mind as a personal affront and remanded her (and her two caregivers) to judicial custody in Dalsinghsarai Jail.....she (the victim) had to repeat her experience to sundry personnel, often only for voyeuristic purposes...she was traumatized and exhausted.....We respectfully submit that any perceived disrespect must be viewed from this perspective," said the lawyers' petition to the Patna High Court.

Though all the hearings in the lower court have been suspended due to Covid-19 lockdown in Bihar from July 16 to July 31, an exception was made on Friday when the Chief Judicial Magistrate court in Araria heard the victim's bail plea and granted her bail.