HC gives Haryana a month’s time to complete investigation

The HC bench was dissatisfied over the submission of Haryana govt, which claimed that it had not been able to find a victim or accused in the alleged incident

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday gave a month’s time to Haryana police to get to the bottom of the alleged Murthal gangrapes, reported during the February 2016 Jat quota violence, in Sonepat, Haryana.

The high court bench of justice SS Saron and justice Avneesh Jhingan was dissatisfied over the submissions of Haryana government, which informed the court that it had not been able to get either a victim or accused in this case.

The alleged gangrapes took place in Sonepat district during the pro-quota violence in February.

The high court took suo motu note of news reports and later Haryana was forced to register

an FIR in April 2016.

Widespread violence was reported during the protests in nearly eight districts of the state for which the police registered 2,100 FIRs.

Impartial adviser in the matter, senior advocate Anupam Gupta, took strong objections to the submissions of the state on ‘Murthal gangrapes’ and argued that initially the government was not ready to register the FIR and now it claimed of not getting any victim or accused in the case.

He submitted that the matter should be handed over to the CBI for probe as the state’s special investigation team (SIT) headed by inspector general of police, Mamta Singh, had failed in cracking the case.

Later, the high court division bench gave a month’s time to Haryana and observed that it could not shut its eyes to the issue.

The court would have to transfer the investigation to CBI if the state police fails to take the investigation to its logical conclusion, the HC observed while deferring hearing till October 12.

CBI SEEKS TIME FOR STATUS REPORT

Meanwhile, the CBI sought time to submit a status report on cases transferred to it either by the state or high court.

The cases transferred to CBI include destruction of properties owned by state’s finance minister, Captain Abhimanyu and his relatives in Rohtak and damage caused to Munak canal, which carries water to national capital.

Meanwhile, an SIT headed IGP (Hisar range) Amitabh Dhillon would scrutinise the closure reports and untraced reports prepared by different districts police related to February 2016 Jat quota violence.

In Rohtak district alone 1212 FIRs were registered but the police had prepared untraced reports in 921 cases.

There are a total of 2,100 FIRs registered by Haryana police for February 2016 quota violence.