The female student accused in the Chandigarh University (CU) video leak case hadn’t captured or shared any objectionable photos or videos of other girl students, as per the forensics report quoted by Mohali Police in its challan submitted in Kharar court on Wednesday.
Police have submitted the challan against the female accused and armyman Sanjeev Singh of Samba in Jammu under Sections 354 A (sexual harassment), 354 C (voyeurism), 354 D (stalking), 506 (criminal intimidation), 509 (insulting modesty of woman), 511 (offences punishable with life imprisonment) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 66C, 66D, 66 E, 67 A, 84 C of the IT Act.
Notably, police dropped the names of Rankaj Verma of Kathar village, Shimla, and Sunny Mehta of Rohru, Shimla, from the challan.
The case had made national headlines on September 18 after a massive protest broke out at CU campus post-midnight amid rumours that objectionable videos of around 60 girls, captured in the hostel bathroom, had been leaked.
The special investigation team (SIT), comprising Ludhiana superintendent of police (counter intelligence) Rupinder Kaur Bhatti, Kharar deputy superintendent of police Rupinderdeep Kaur Sohi, DSP, AGTF member Deepika Singh, while quoting the FSL report stated, “Some normal photos of girls were captured and sent to Sanjeev Singh. The female accused had sent her own objectionable photos/videos to him.”
SIT established that soon after a brief chat between the female accused and Sanjeev, the latter demanded objectionable pictures/videos from her.
{{/usCountry}}SIT established that soon after a brief chat between the female accused and Sanjeev, the latter demanded objectionable pictures/videos from her.
{{/usCountry}}“She sent her obscene videos and photos. But later Sanjeev started blackmailing her for sending more of her videos and pictures. After a few days, Sanjeev also demanded objectionable photos/videos of other girls from the female accused,” submitted SIT.
The SIT added that the female accused, instead of reporting the matter, attempted to capture the photo of an unknown girl in washroom number 2 on seventh floor of LC Hostel. She further attempted to capture objectionable photos of other girls of the hostel but failed, reported SIT.
The co-accused armyman had also sent an objectionable photo of the woman to her father and paternal aunt. Thus, police added sections of criminal intimidation and insulting modesty of woman to the FIR.
Ashwani Kalia, deputy director (in-charge crime scene), forensic science laboratory, Punjab, in his report had stated that there was ample gap in the washrooms at the CU hostel so a five-ft tall person could have easily made a video.
Earlier on October 20, a Kharar court had released Sunny Mehta on bail, while on October 6, Rankaj Verma was granted bail. The court had observed that Rankaj had no link with any other co-accused. Rankaj had surrendered before the police and was arrested on the basis of use of his display picture taken from social media. According to the police, the armyman Sanjeev had downloaded the photograph of Rankaj from social media and used it as his display picture on the number with which he was chatting with the female accused. Sunny Mehta was arrested after the female accused’s phone was taken in custody. Police eventually failed to establish Mehta’s involvement in the case.