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Journalist Cooked Up Evidence In Murthal Gangrape Case, Should Be Prosecuted, Amicus Curiae Tells Court

Voice of "victim's mother" was allegedly of one of his relatives.
Activists from All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) shout slogans behind a police barricade outside the Haryana Bhawan during a protest in New Delhi, India, February 29, 2016.
Anindito Mukherjee / Reuters
Activists from All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) shout slogans behind a police barricade outside the Haryana Bhawan during a protest in New Delhi, India, February 29, 2016.

Delhi-based Journalist Tariq Anwar had produced false evidence in the alleged gangrape case in Murthal, Haryana, during the Jat agitation earlier this year and should be prosecuted, amicus curiae Anupam Gupta told the Punjab and Haryana High Court yesterday.

Gupta based his observation on the findings of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) that submitted the report before a division bench of Justice SS Saron and Justice Arun Palli, according to the Indian Express.

The report claimed that the voice recording that Anwar produced when he deposed before a special judge in Sonepat was of his relative's but he presented it as the statement of the mother of one of the alleged rape survivors, according to the Times of India.

"Anwar should be prosecuted for false evidence. He does not enjoy any impunity as a journalist," Express quoted Gupta as saying.

Gupta raised doubt about the statement of another man from Punjab who posted a letter on social media, allegedly written by an Australian woman who was raped at Murthal. The letter was a "figment of imagination", he said.

However, Gupta advised against closing the rape case, because another witness Raj Kumar, who was passing through Murthal during the agitation, had told the special judge that the rapes had taken place.

At least 30 people were killed and over 320 injured in the nine-day long Jat agitation for reservation in February this year. There were reports that women had been dragged out to the fields and raped during the violence that ensued. The Haryana government had initially denied the reports of rape, but admitted in April that there could be a possibility that they could have happened.

The SIT report said that no victim of the alleged mass gang rape or molestation had come forward to complain. The High Court, taking suo motu notice of the reports in the media about the gangrapes, had asked the Haryana government and police to submit a status report and appointed lawyer Anupam Gupta as amicus curie. (Inputs from PTI)

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