Bengaluru girl death case: Exhume minor girl’s body, demand activists

Bengaluru: A 10-year-old girl, who was brought dead to a hospital with her private parts bleeding on June 6, could be a victim of sexual assault. Her body should be exhumed for a fair and impartial probe, demanded representatives of human rights organisations on Monday. The activists, armed with documentary evidence on the sequence of events in the case, met acting chairperson of the State Human Rights

Commission (SHRC), Meera C. Saxena, and SHRC IGP N. Shivakumar, and submitted a report. The city police, based on the postmortem report, had said that the girl’s death was due to dengue. “We submitted a detailed report to the SHRC, narrating the sequences of events in chronological order, which raises suspicions over the girl’s death. We found discrepancies which point to grave sexual assault on the girl and we are also suspicious of the way the police handled the case,” said Rajesh Umadevi, an activist from Praja Rajakiya Vedike.

The police seem to have tried to hush up the case, in which four men, including the son of an Assam minister, were picked by the police and questioned. Sources claimed that the four men – Pallob Phukan, Rituraj Phukan, Kashanav Koushik and Bipul – were in police custody for five days and their statements were recorded after the Sanjay Nagar police filed an unnatural death case on June 6.

Activists from Vimochana, Manthan Law, Sthree Jagruthi Samithi, AASRA and other organizations have gone on a fact-finding mission and accessed documents to prove that the child died one or two hours before she was first brought to RMV Hospital in Sanjay Nagar. She was then taken to M.S. Ramaiah Hospital where, the police claimed, she died at the casualty ward during treatment. A staff member of RMV Hospital, Ganesh, confirmed to Deccan Chronicle that the girl was brought dead. “We told them that the girl had expired at least an hour earlier. We did not take her in and referred those accompanying the body to M.S. Ramaiah Hospital for further formalities,” Ganesh said.

“If the victim was dead earlier, why would the police say that she died in the casualty ward, while undergoing treatment at M.S. Ramaiah Hospital,” asked an activist. “There were deliberate attempts to mislead us when our fact-finding members probed the case.” The activists have also procured documents from Dr Sharath Memorial Health Centre, where the girl was taken even before she was shifted to RMV and M.S. Ramaiah Hospitals. The document states that the victim had injuries in her rectum. “The body of the victim should be exhumed. We are demanding a fair and impartial probe by an independent agency. All those who suppressed evidence, including medical facilitators, should be prosecuted if found guilty,” said Mr Manohar, an activist from Praja Rajakiya Vedike.

Deccan Chronicle reported in its June 13 edition that the girl could be a victim of sexual assault and that she was brought dead to the hospital with her private parts bleeding. The doctors at the hospital had alerted the police. The girl’s mother reportedly told the police that her daughter was suffering from fever and dysentery. The police picked up the four suspects, and recorded their statements after a case of unnatural death was registered.

Activist: Police escorted body, why?

The city police escorted the body of the child and her mother, who flew to Mumbai for the victim’s final rites after the postmortem at M.S. Ramaiah Hospital on June 6, sources said.