NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh police’s statement that the Hathras victim was not raped is extremely “irresponsible”, “unprofessional” and an “erroneous” remark, experts in forensics, legal and police systems said on Thursday.
The specialists in these fields said that the 2013 amendment in rape laws has waived the clause that had made it necessary to establish 'penetration' in crimes of rape. The experts also questioned the delay in conducting the medical examination of the victim.
UP ADG Law and Order Prashant Kumar had reportedly told the media on Thursday, “No semen has been found in the forensic report. The FSL report has already clarified that there was no rape on the victim. However, the victim’s autopsy report mentions tears in her private parts."
The woman had been assaulted allegedly by four upper-caste men from her village on September 14. She was found by her family in the fields, naked, bleeding, with multiple fractures and a gash in her tongue. Reportedly, her detailed medical examination was conducted days later, on September 22.
A senior scientific officer at a government forensic department said, “As a general norm, after 72 hours of the act, it is difficult to get semen. So, it is crucial to send the sample for examination within 72 hours.”
“The horrific Nirbhaya tragedy brought reforms in the rape law and it was made clear that penetration is not necessary to establish the offence of rape. So, to presume that rape did not happen just because semen was not found is a false and erroneous conclusion more so, in the backdrop of the fact that medical was conducted after eight days of the incident," said former DGP of UP police Vikram Singh.
He added that in certain kinds of rapes such as digital rape, it was obvious that sperm would not be traced. He described the response of the UP police department as "shoddy and unprofessional."
Another former UP police chief, who did not wish to be named, said that it was "obvious that the UP police has jumped the gun and has made this extremely irresponsible statement. As per law, this so-called absence of semen is not enough to conclude that the woman was not raped especially when we know there were injuries to her private parts.”
Expanding on the legal loopholes in the statements made by the UP police officer, AT Ansari, who was the special prosecutor in the Nirbhaya rape case, said, "The 2013 amendment in IPC has waived the ingredient of penetration to constitute rape. As per the existing law it is not important that “hymen” should be “ruptured”. It has also done away with the two-finger test used by doctors on victims to establish rape."
The senior prosecutor said that after the Nirbhaya case, the rape law had gone through a sea change. "The definition of rape has now been expanded to include acts like penetration of the penis into vagina, urethra, anus or mouth, or any object or any part of the body to any extent into it (or making another person do so), to constitute an offence of rape. Even applying mouth or touching private parts were also classified as offences of sexual assault," Ansari added.