Delhi is living up to its 'Rape Capital of India' tag. And the Delhi Police continues to show a marked reluctance to register FIR. In the most recent incident, the police did not register an FIR on the complaint of repeated rape lodged by a PhD student of Jawaharlal Nehru University. It did so only after the student lodged a second complaint.
The new rape law makes it mandatory on the police to lodge an FIR when a complaint of sexual assault is made. But the Vasant Kunj (North) police failed to lodge an FIR when the rape-survivor lodged her first complaint. This act encouraged the perpetrator to carry on traumatising the rape-survivor.
"Section 166A of the new law makes it pretty clear that if a police official knowingly refuses to lodge an FIR and if that is to the prejudice of the rape-survivor he is liable to be punished. His senior should lodge an FIR against him," said Vrinda Grover, human rights lawyer, adding that it will take time for the police to change, as it is a new law.
Calls made to south district DCP B S Jaiswal and Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat for this report went unanswered.
The police said on Wednesday, the JNU PhD student gathered enough courage to report the matter a second time on Tuesday. On this occasion by making a call to the Police Control Room. This time the local police could not escape doing its duty. An FIR was lodged after women cops took the rape-survivor to AIIMS and a "medical" confirmed rape. By then, the rapist was on the lam, with several police teams on his heels.
The accused has been charged with rape (section 376), and criminal intimidation (section 506). A senor police official, who is not authorised to speak to the media in an official capacity, told dna that the alleged rapist was a friend of the woman, and used to visit her hostel room in the JNU campus. On one such visit, he allegedly raped her; then with promises of marrying her, he kept forcing himself on her.
The police official said the accused hails from Patna and is a research scholar in JNU. He lives in Munirka, a residential locality right outside the JNU campus in south Delhi. "The woman has claimed that he filmed the act and threatened her with dire consequences if she reported the matter to the police," said the police official.
According to latest figures released by the National Crime Records Bureau, 92 women are raped every day in India. On an average, four rapes are reported from Delhi every day. In 2013, there were 1636 cases of rape reported in the national capital. In the majority of the cases (94%), the offender was known to the rapist.
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