Three Months On, No Chargesheet Filed in Choti Nirbhaya Case

Three months after the incident, the child is returning to her normal self but no charge sheet has been filed, yet.

4-year-old Keshav Puram rape victim. (Photo: The Quint)

Three months ago, this 4-year-old girl from Keshav Puram didn’t know what sexual assault was. On 9 October last year, she was brutally raped by an acquaintance.

Her agony had just begun. Doing the rounds of hospitals, police station and the court – places which scare even adults – became a regular feature for the child. But three months after that fateful incident, she hasn’t made sense of what she’s gone through, and is going through still.

“Namaste madam ji,” she shouts merrily as I enter her house in the slum. “She is reverting to her normal self. She has started to forget what happened that evening,” her mother says.

She can’t say that about the rest of the family. While they try to move on, they are constantly plagued by worries about her future. “What if she isn’t able to give birth to a child?”or “Who would marry her after knowing what she went through”, these are questions that haunt her grandfather.

No Regular Source of Income

Her grandfather has been ill for a month and her father, a daily wage labourer, has not been able to find work after a long break of two months that he took to take care of his daughter. The family has no steady source of income.

The Quint, with the help of the crowdfunding platform, BitGiving, raised Rs 5 lakh for the family. The family also received Rs 1 lakh as compensation from the Delhi government through the Delhi Victim Compensation Scheme 2011.

The family says the money is still in the bank and will be used for her health and education.

Choti Nirbhaya plays in her neighbourhood. (Photo: The Quint)

Unhygienic Surroundings

The child, recovering from physical and mental trauma, has started playing around her neighbourhood which is unhygienic, to say the least. She cheerfully tells me about a water tank, that has come to her locality this morning.

She runs off to play near the water tank while her grandfather walks me out of their slum. She runs the risk of getting an infection from her dirty playground.

On the question of shifting from somewhere else, her grandfather sounds grumpy. “We will only be able to leave this place when the government decides to shift us somewhere else,” he says.

Chargesheet Not Filed

Ninety days after the incident, no chargesheet has been filed. This despite the fact that the culprit was convicted a couple of days after the incident, and is currenty in Tihar Jail.

On 16 December 2015, Anita Sharma, the SO of Keshav Puram Police Station told The Quint that a chargesheet will be filed in a couple of days. Three weeks later, she only repeated that assurance.

Swati Maliwal, Chief of the Delhi Commission of Women, had visited the child in the hospital the day after the incident. Asked about the delay in filing the chargesheet, her office says, they are going to issue a notice about it.

<p>We are going to issue a notice to the concerned police station, regarding the delay in the filing of chargesheet.</p>

<b> Office of the DCW Chief</b>

<p>The chargesheet can also be filed on the 90th day of the FIR. But If the accused is in jail and the police have not filed chargesheet within the 90-days timeframe, the accused can apply for bail and get it.</p>

<b>Priya Hingorani, Senior Lawyer</b>

Anita Sharma, SO of Keshav Puram Police Station says she will file the chargesheet on the Monday, 11 January while the FIR of the case was lodged on 10 October last year.

After speedy action by the Keshav Puram police in arresting the accused, one is left to wonder where the roadblock really lies in filing the chargesheet.

Related articles:
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