Bhopal gangrape: Junked medical report said sex was consensual, Congress alleges cover-up
Under fire in the Bhopal gangrape case, hospital authorities and police said it was a mistake that was later rectified.
The opposition Congress has accused the Madhya Pradesh government of trying a cover-up after a medical report, which has since been junked, of a 19-year-old gang-rape victim said the “sex was consensual”.
The civil services aspirant was raped allegedly by four rag-pickers close to the government railway police’s Habibganj station in Bhopal on October 31, causing widespread anger as fighting over police jurisdiction delayed the filing of complaint.
The initial medical report, prepared after the woman was examined on November 1, at the Sultania Zanana Hospital said, “Two boys named… took her near the sewage and then into the tunnel where they had sexual intercourse with her with her consent of (sic) will.”
Hindustan Times has a copy of the report, which the hospital, says was filed by two post-graduate students. The city’s Gandhi Medical College is attached to the hospital where students go for internship.
The final medical report is awaited.
“How can lady doctors commit such a grave mistake and write such insensitive remarks about a rape victim. Licence of such doctors should be immediately cancelled,” the victim’s mother told the Hindustan Times on Thursday.
Medical report is vital to a rape case and doctors rely on bruises and injury marks to ascertain if sex was forced but if there is a delay, like in this case, such marks can fade or go away.
The report was a “crime and a conspiracy”, Congress’ spokesperson KK Mishra said. “The way the police delayed lodging the report in the first place, passing the buck from one police station to another, and now this medical report proves that a conspiracy was afoot to dilute the case,” he said, demanding a criminal case against erring doctors.
Under fire, hospital authorities and police said it was a mistake which was rectified.
The errors made by the students were spotted by an expert committee and the report rejected, Sultania hospital superintendent Dr Karan Pipre said. “A show-cause notice was issued to them,” he said. Someone played a mischief, took a photograph of the report and circulated it, he said.
The hospital had learnt its lesson and now on, only experts would write the medico-legal report, he said.
Police, too, dismissed the report as wrong. “It is a wrong report. We have rejected it a long time back. Why are you all bringing this up now,” Hemant Shrivastava, who is investigating the case, said.
The state government had transferred senior police officials after it emerged that the girl’s parents, both police personnel, hunted down one of the alleged rapists and it was then a case was registered.
Madhya Pradesh is one of the most unsafe and dangerous places for women in India. One woman is raped in the state almost every two hours.
Data submitted in the assembly in February this year shows 11 women were raped every day and six gang-raped almost every week in Madhya Pradesh between February 1, 2016, and mid-February 2017.
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