Vibgyor High rape case very difficult to probe, say cops

The City police, who have apparently bungled the probe into the rape of a six-year-old girl at Vibgyor High in Marathalli, on Tuesday said that it was extremely difficult to investigate the case as the victim was “never cogent, coherent and articulate.”

The police, who had arrested skating instructor Mustafa on the charge of raping the girl, almost gave him a clean chit on Tuesday and stated that it was the two gym instructors who had actually raped her at a room in the school on July 3.

When City Police Commissioner M N Reddi was questioned about the U-turn made by the police and change in their statements, he said: “The information was not logical.

The child was never cogent, coherent and articulate and was often confusing. There were a lot of discrepancies and variations in her accounts. A case involving such a child is extremely difficult to investigate. We needed to build the entire process carefully. Whatever has been done by the police so far, has been done as per law.

“We have done to the best of our abilities. We have detected the case and people, parents and children have heaved a sigh of relief,” he said.

The police, who cut a sorry figure at the crowded press conference despite arresting the “actual rapists,” maintained that Mustafa had now been booked for an attempt to rape case, which reportedly took place some four years ago at Deens Academy in Whitefield where he was working earlier.

The police booked an First Information Report (FIR) against Mustafa at Whitefield police station on Monday night in connection with the incident.

On Tuesday, they announced names of two different people as the “real” culprits in the Vibgyor High case and also said the incident had in fact taken place on July 3 and not on July 2 as mentioned earlier.

Circumstantial evidence

Some senior police officials admitted that the arrest of Mustafa was based only on circumstantial evidence and that he was only a suspect. However, now it looks as though police had come under mounting pressure from the government to solve the case and arrested Mustafa based on his antecedents.

Further, their suspicion strengthened after they found pornographic content related to rape of schoolchildren on his laptops, their suspicion was strengthened.
The police had booked Mustafa under IPC Section 376 and Sections 4 and 6 of Pocso Act. 

The police had also stated that Mustafa had confessed to the crime. At Tuesday’s press conference, Reddi could not answer all the questions raised on the investigation and provide convincing justification for Mustafa’s arrest. In fact, at one point, police hinted at ruling out his role in the case completely.

“If further investigation does not prove his involvement, we might end up giving him a clean chit,'' DCP (Crime) Abhishek Goyal told Deccan Herald. However, Reddi was cautious.

 “Mustafa is still an accused. We have not so far ruled out his direct involvement. We are yet to file the charge sheet. We will decide giving him a clean chit while submitting the charge sheet,”  he said.

Regarding contradictory versions of the police and Home Minister K J George, who had made a statement in the Legislative Council, Reddi said: “We neither misled the Home Minister nor were in a hurry. The minister’s statement was based on the FIR. Many new things have come up during the course of investigation and it is natural.”