BHOPAL: A daily wage tribal labourer who was acquitted about two months back in a gangrape case after spending two years in jail has moved a court in MP’s Ratlam district seeking damages of Rs 10,006.02 crore for being falsely implicated.
Kantilal Singh alias Kantu, 30, was booked in 2018 by Bajna police in Ratlam district along with two others for gangraping a woman with two children. “My client after being falsely implicated in the case left home and kept changing his locations for over two years to escape the police for a crime that he never committed,” Kantilal’s advocate Vijay Yadav told this paper.
“He was arrested on Dec 23, 2020 and acquitted on Oct 22, 2022, spending 666 days in jail,” said Yadav.
According to Kantilal, his family comprising mother, wife and three children were pushed to starvation and his children were forced to quit studies due to the false gangrape case lodged against him in 2018. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” he said.
While claiming the damages, Yadav has filed a suit against the state of Madhya Pradesh, the husband of the woman who alleged being gang-raped by Kantilal and two others, besides three police personnel.
The claim is for loss of productive years of life, income and property, reputation and credit, bodily and mental pain, loss of freedom and family life.
“The figure claimed by my client as damages may seem unrealistic, but it’s too small compared to the harassment caused to him. Even animals get protection, but there is no law for protecting men from being implicated like this,” said Yadav. The case comes up for hearing before the Ratlam district and sessions court on January 10, said the advocate.
Case caused trauma to kin
Kantilal says his mother, wife and three children were pushed to starvation and his children were forced to quit their studies due to the false case lodged against him in 2018.