Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
NAGPUR Police have invited the ire of the Chief Secretary for their poor rate of investigation into sexual offences. Probe into more than 87.5 per cent sexual offences has not been completed within the stipulated 60-day period. The time-frame in sexual assault cases has been decided by Union Home Ministry by issuing The Criminal Law (Amendment) ordinance 2018. Chief Secretary of Maharashtra rapped the City Police for this lackluster attitude in a meeting held at Mumbai recently.
“As per the new amendment, filing of chargesheet within 60 days is necessary in such cases. However, many police units in the State have failed to do it as many officers are simply unaware of new amendment,” Inspector General of Police Pratap Dighaonkar, Prevention of Atrocities against women (PAW), informed ‘The Hitavada’.
The Centre had approved the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018 last year which prescribed the time-limit for completion of investigation to put check on sexual crimes against women and children. The law was initially promulgated as an Ordinance on April 21, 2018 following an outcry over the rape and murder of a minor girl in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir and the rape of a woman in Unnao in Uttar Pradesh.
According to the letter of IGP Dighaonkar, a total of 193 First Investigation Reports (FIRs) in crime against women and children were filed between April 21, 2018 and July 23, 2019 by City Police. Of them, cops have managed to file final reports and chargesheets in 103 cases which is 53.37 per cent and the compliance rate, as per the letter, is 13.85 per cent.
Recently, a review meeting was held in Mumbai which was presided over by Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta. He registered displeasure after finding Nagpur police’s dismal compliance rate, it was learnt.
Citing reasons behind the slow compliance rate, a senior police officer of Nagpur Police said, “In some cases, complainants try to implicate a person on false charges. Such cases need to be investigated properly to prevent injustice to common man.”. Another reason, he told, was the delay in receiving medical reports from Forensic Labs which is the most important evidence in rape cases.
In February this year, the Home Ministry had launched an analytic tool — Investigation Tracking System for Sexual Offences (ITSSO) to monitor and track time-bound investigation. It is part of the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS) that connects over 15,000 police stations across the country. Officials at PAW are monitoring progress in sexual assault cases in the State.
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