Irfan Tramboo

‘Rape’ of mentally ‘unsound’: Police still clueless as victim is discharged from Hospital

‘Rape’ of mentally ‘unsound’: Police still clueless as victim is discharged from Hospital
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Srinagar: Police, it seems, is still clueless about the alleged rape of a mentally unsound woman in the Old city area of Srinagar nine months ago. The woman who gave birth alongside a road in Ganderbal had developed complicacies as the baby also had died during the birth.

Station House Officer, Rainawari who is investigating the allegation levelled by an activist representing an NGO that the mentally unsound woman was raped at Makhdoom Sahab area, said that police has registered a case under FIR number 88/2018/ under section 376.

“We are investigating the allegation that the lady was raped at Makhdoom Sahib Shrine 9 months ago, as per the activist representing an NGO,” SHO Rainawari Aijaz Ahmad said.

“However, what followed in Ganderbal, how she reached there, how she delivered the baby does not come under our jurisdiction, you can contact the concerned police officials for more details there,” he added.

Pertinently, the unmarried, ‘mentally unsound’, woman in her thirties had given birth to a child on the roadside in Gund area of district Ganderbal. The baby died and the woman was brought to Lalla Ded Hospital for treatment after she was developed some complications.

Insiders said that the lady, who seemed to be mentally unsound, was brought in to the hospital after she developed serious complications, “the lady had given birth to a baby on the roadside, and due to perineal tearing she was bleeding profusely,” the insiders said, adding that “how she conceived a baby is still a riddle.”

“There were remains of the placenta in her body that were found when she was being treated, it was due to that she was bleeding, plus perineal tearing had led to her serious condition,” an insider privy to the treatment said.

The perineal tears, medics said, mainly occur in women as a result of normal childbirth, which strains the perineum and causes the bleeding.

The lady was brought to the hospital by an activist representing an NGO and alleged that she was raped and tried to act as the caretaker for the lady. The police did not come to register the report, it only came to file the report after the court treated a news story filed by a local newspaper as a PIL.

The NGO, however, is alleging that the lady was raped 9 months ago at Makhdoom Sahab shrine, the angle which the police are currently investigating.

So far the mystery remains, the woman has been handed over to the family that resides in Budgam, with her father being directed to bring his daughter to the Psychiatry Hospital, Rainawari to ascertain her mental wellness.

The PIL was heard on Thursday by the Chief Justice Geeta Mittal where ordered a probe into the case and asked the doctors from the psychiatry dept to conduct a psychiatric check-up of the woman after the father of the victim contested that his daughter was not mentally fit.

The CJ, those privy to the hearing, said, has categorically told the NGO to maintain a distance from the case and let the police do its job of probing ‘what happened where’.

A division bench of Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Sanjeev Kumar directed the police to conduct the investigation “uninfluenced and unhindered by any person, authority or an NGO.”


Irfan Tramboo

Irfan Tramboo is a reporter and covers education and health and can be contacted [email protected]

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