The Crime Investigation Department has charged a 19-year-old speech- and hearing-impaired girl with public nuisance, alleging that she had made a “false case” of rape against three men in 2014, The Hindu reported on Saturday. Her mother, too, was booked under the same charge.
In her original complaint, the girl, who was a minor at the time, had alleged that a group of men had raped her in the fields of Kodagarai in Tamil Nadu on December 25, 2014, in retaliation for a fight between her family and the accused. The local police had filed a case of “attempt to rape” six days later. Her father had filed a writ petition before the Madras High Court, wanting the case transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
In September 2015, the High Court had quashed the police report that invoked rape and ordered a fresh investigation. Justice PN Prakash had said parents often inflict injuries on their daughters to settle scores, and the order said that “prima facie, it appeared that he (the petitioner) had trumped up false charges of rape against the accused, and the local police investigation was swayed by public opinion”.
The final report presented at the Krishnagiri court on Friday says that the 19-year-old “might” have been “tutored” to allege molestation because she did not convey the same to the doctors at the hospital where she was examined. The report also quotes doctors as saying that there was no way to correctly interpret her sign language.
It also counters the medical report of the Dharmapuri Government Medical College-Hospital, which said her hymen was ruptured, but accepts the reports of taluk hospitals of Hosur and Krishnagiri, which said she had not been sexually assaulted and the hymen was intact.
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