Hathras rape case: Crucial hospital CCTV footage not available

The CBI team investigating the alleged Hathras gang-rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit has not been able to find CCTV footage of when the girl was being admitted into the district hospital on September 14. The crucial evidence of her being brought in to the hospital was not backed up, according to a report by The Times of India.

“The district administration and police had not asked for the footage at the time. Now, after a month, we can’t provide it,” said chief medical superintendent of the hospital, Indra Veer Singh.

Singh added that the hospital would have saved the footage if someone had asked them to.

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“Previous footage gets deleted every seven days and new footage gets recorded over it,” said Singh, according to the report.

The CBI team had visited the hospital in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, to record doctors statements and examine the evidence. The CCTV footage of September 14 would have been crucial in the investigation, a police officer said.

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A source told the publication that the CBI team wanted to go over the footage and ascertain key time points - when the victim was brought in, when she was moved out, who attended to her and who spoke to her when she was there.

The police and administration were also questioned as to why the footage was not acquired earlier.

A police officer told the news organisation that the hospital had “nothing to do” with the investigation. “Unless a crime took place in the hospital or negligence was reported, this has no bearing on the criminal investigation. These are unrelated things. That is why CCTV footage was not taken into account,” he added.