Agra Nari Niketan’s exsuperintendent sentenced to full life term

AGRA: The sessions court here on Saturday sentenced former superintendent of state women’s protection home (Nari Niketan), Agra, Geeta Rakesh to full life imprisonment and also slapped a penalty of Rs 6,51,000 on her for illegally releasing 43 women inmates and eight children in unsafe hands without proper authority.

The court held that this amounted to forcing them back into human trafficking and prostitution.

The landmark judgement was passed by special judge (POCSO Act)/ eighth additional session judge Anil Kumar.

Geeta Rakesh was arrested on June 1, 2017 and was in district jail after being denied bail by different courts. She was present in court when the judgement was pronounced.

The defence counsel had pleaded for leniency on the ground that the accused was a woman and had no criminal past but additional district government counsel Subhash Giri said that the former superintendent had committed a serious offence and despite being a woman, had pushed the women inmates and children back into human trafficking and prostitution, which called for tough penal action.

Special judge Anil Kumar held that the offence committed by Geeta Rakesh affected society at large and was concerned with women and children.

So it called for exemplary punishment.

To recall, over 60 women rescued from prostitution during a drive in Allahabad were sent to Agra Nari Niketan in 2016. While some of them were released from the protection home after court orders, 45 women and their eight children remained there.

Later, 43 of these women and all the eight children were allegedly handed over to dubious receivers by the then superintendent, Geeta Rakesh, despite orders from authorities in Allahabad not to release them.

An inquiry found Geeta Rakesh guilty of handing over the inmates to some people without following due procedures. The addresses of the receivers to whom the inmates were handed over were also found to be fake. Consequently, Geeta Rakesh was arrested and sent to jail.

A case was lodged by government officials at the Itimad-udDaula police station here in 2017. In the FIR, apprehensions were raised that due to the protection home superintendent’s neglect, the inmates might have been forced back into prostitution. Move to trace missing inmates After a recent incident at Deoria in UP, the focus was back on these 43 inmate women and 8 children from Agra Nari Niketan.

The matter was also brought to the knowledge of the Supreme Court by an NGO seeking special investigation.

Recently SSP Agra, Amit Pathak had appointed the circle officer of Chhatta, Ritesh Kumar Singh, as the new investigating officer in the matter.

The SSP also asked SP (city) Prashant Verma to constitute a new team for the probe and directions were issued to trace these missing inmates.