Rohtak gang rape case to be tried by fast-track court

The hearing of the brutal gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old Dalit woman in Sonepat will be conducted in a fast-track court, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said on Monday.

“Such kind of heinous crimes would not be tolerated at any cost in a civilised society and the guilty would be punished,” he said.

Two persons, including the main accused Sumit, who is also a Dalit, have been sent to seven days in police remand. They will be produced in court on May 22.

Haryana Police has formed a Special Investigation Team to probe the case.

The decomposed and mutilated body of the woman, who went missing from Sonipat on May 9 and was gang-raped and brutally murdered, was found near the Industrial Model Township in Urban Estate, Rohtak, on May 11.

Stray dogs had bitten off the face and lower portion of her body.

The sheer brutality of the crime, reminiscent of the December 16, 2012 incident in Delhi which triggered nationwide outrage, occurred barely a month after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Haryana government launched ‘Operation Durga’ to stop harassment of women.

An autopsy of the victim had stated that the bones of the woman’s skull were shattered into pieces and ‘some sharp-edged objects may have been inserted in her private parts’.

“The findings suggest that it was a brutal rape and murder,” said S K Dhatterwal, head of the department of forensic medicine at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Rohtak, who conducted the post-mortem examination.

Police said the family of the victim have suspected the involvement of six more persons, out of whom five are related to the main accused.

The kin of the victim have also alleged that they had approached the Sonipat police about a month back with a complaint that Sumit was harassing their daughter, but there was no action.

The chief minister also promised strict action against those involved in the alleged rape of a 22-year-old woman at Gurgaon in the state.

The woman from Sikkim was allegedly raped by three men in a moving car and thrown out on a road in Delhi on Sunday.

IMAGE: Policemen, with the accused, inspect the scene of crime where the brutally mutilated body of a woman was dumped after she was abducted, gang-raped and murdered, in Rohtak on Sunday. Photograph: PTI Photo