Year on, rights body wages a lone fight
HYDERABAD: The demise of a teenage Jain girl at her Secunderabad residence after 68 days of fasting on October 2 last year has become a thing of the past for many, including her parents and the Hyderabad police.
The Andhra Pradesh Child Rights Association (APCRA), however, still hopes to take 13-year-old Aradhana Samdariya’s case to its logical conclusion.
The rights body, which is fighting for her cause before the 10th additional chief metropolitan magistrate’s court in Secunderabad, has challenged the Hyderabad police’s decision to close the case for lack of evidence. “We took this step because they did not submit any charge sheet in the case, as mandated, within 90 days of the filing of FIR. The case has been getting postponed since then. The next hearing is on October 9,” association president P Achyuta Rao told Hindustan Times (HT).
Aradhana, a Class VIII student, had died on October 2 last year – less than three days after ending a 68-day tapasya ritual laid down by her community – triggering nationwide outrage. Doctors at a private hospital declared the cause of her demise as cardiac arrest caused due to an imbalance in salts.
The girl’s family members also refused to discuss the issue on her first death anniversary. “I am very busy right now. I can’t talk to you,” Lakshmichand Samdariya, the girl’s father told HT .
The Secunderabad Market police had registered an FIR against Aradhana’s parents under Section 304[2] (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 75 (exposing a child to harm) of the Juvenile Justice Act on October 9 last year, after the child rights association filed a complaint.
However, the case was dropped in February. A report submitted to the Secunderabad court stated that the case filed by the APCRA was “lacking in evidence”.
Hyderabad deputy commissioner of police (North Zone) B Sumathi told HT that they had little to go ahead on. “We submitted everything we had to the court, including a report obtained from hospital authorities on how the girl died. We decided to drop the case because we could not find any evidence indicating that the victim’s parents forced the tapasya on her,” Sumathi said.
Achyuta Rao, however, said this instance of police non-cooperation was only a minor setback in their fight for Aradhana. “If we don’t get justice here, we shall move the Hyderabad high court”.