Justice delayed is justice denied. In Ayesha Meera’s alleged rape and murder case, justice has been reportedly delayed for the last 14 years.
The B. Pharmacy student was brutally murdered by some miscreants after she was allegedly sexually assaulted in her hostel room at Ibrahimpatnam, on Vijayawada outskirts, on the intervening night of December 26 and 27, 2007.
The case took may twists and the victim’s family members staged protests along with people’s organisations several times demanding that the culprits be brought to book.
The police recovered the body in the washroom of Sri Durga Ladies hostel in the early hours on December 27, 2007. They collected the scientific evidence and recorded the statements of the witnesses at the spot.
“Justice was done in Nirbhaya case occurred in 2012, in Delhi, and in Disha case reported in Hyderabad in 2019. But, why is justice delayed in Ayesha case,” questioned Shamshad Begum, mother of the victim.
The sensational case shook the united Andhra Pradesh, and the issue rocked the Assembly. The High Court pulled up the police for the poor investigation and monitored the probe. Still there is no development in the investigation, Ayesha’s parents said.
The Central Bureau of Investigation, which took up the investigation of the case in 2018, registered a case against some court staff for destroying the evidence.
CBI officials visited the spot, reconstructed the scene, and filed a petition the court seeking permission to allow narco analysis tests on the hostel warden and other inmates of the hostel, who stayed along with Ayesha in the hostel then. However, the court dismissed the petition.
“We cooperated for the CBI investigation. Though it is against our sentiment, we convinced the religions heads to exhume the body after 12 years of the incident. But, the mortal remains of our daughter were not returned to us and we don’t know why the investigation in the case was stopped,” Ayesha’s father Iqbal Pasha.
“Even after 14 years, justice is not rendered to us and we are living in constant fear,” Ayesha’s parents bemoaned.
