PANAJI: Police were too quick to rule out all other aspects and conclude that the death of the 19-year-old was due to suicide, said Caroline Collasso, a lawyer specialising in criminal law. “They backtracked after public uproar, but that came in a little too late. The family is already going through a lot of trauma at the loss of their daughter and the police should be trained to have the tone of sympathy and say that they’re investigating all aspects,” she said.
After the Nirbhaya case, the law was changed, and the definition of rape is now broader than plain penetration. “There could have been several other things that the perpetrators could have done to her. Just because they found the hymen intact doesn’t imply that she was not raped. The police couldn’t have ruled out all other aspects at the very first instance,” she said.
If the suicide theory is to be believed it’s hard to digest that the girl’s clothes came off by accident, she said, adding that the police will have to assuage people’s fears.
“The police’s ridiculous response to the case has only aggravated the fears of women who anyway feel unsafe,” Collasso said, adding that if it was death by drowning, police must thoroughly investigate whether she drowned or was drowned.
Former chairperson of the state commission for women, advocate Shubhalaxmi Naik said there was no proper investigation by police, who handled the death of the young girl in a very “casual manner”.
“The family is being blamed for giving wrong statements. A family could be less educated and traumatised. They could say something wrong and certain things could occur to them later. The statement of the family cannot be taken as gospel truth. Whether it is suicide or murder, what is required is thorough investigation of a dead person. Life cannot be treated as such a cheap thing,” she told TOI.
A precious life has been lost. “She might have become an important person for the country. Just like we knew nothing about the Olympic medallists before they won a medal,” she said.
There are already several SOPs and guidelines after the Nirbhaya case for police to sensitively handle such matters, said women’s activist Sabina Martins. “The responsibility of police personnel down the line not implementing guidelines, lies with the top brass. There should be regular training and briefing of police and instructions need to go from top to bottom, if they’re serious about crimes against women,” she added.
Former chairperson of the women’s commission Pramod Salgaocar told TOI that police should have swung into action no sooner they received information of a person missing and especially of a young woman not reaching her destination in a tourist state.
“The family was definitely worried, otherwise they wouldn’t have gone to the police station. Telling a family to wait for 24 hours in a tourist state with so many people coming in everyday and many crimes being reported is not right. I’m surprised the case hasn’t been handed over to the crime branch or higher officers,” she said.
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