Cops find no traces of semen, victim’s blood, court told

The court on Tuesday said it would hear the arguments on the framing of charges on December 3.

Delhi Police on Tuesday told a city court hearing the murder and alleged gang-rape of a nine-year-old Dalit girl at Delhi Cantonment on August 1 that forensic reports have so far not confirmed the presence of her blood on the clothes of any of the four accused or on the bedsheet on which the crime occurred. Nor have semen traces been found on the bedsheet or the burnt clothes of the victim, police said.

Activists, students, housewives took to the streets to express their sense of exasperation at the condition of woman in the national capital. (File)

All this has been included in the supplementary chargesheet filed on October 27 before additional sessions judge Ashutosh Kumar. Four people were arrested for the crime — Radhey Shyam, Kuldeep Singh, Salim Ahmed and Laxmi Narayan. However, police said that Singh’s blood was found from his shorts and handkerchief.

The police have further told the court that the entry made in the dead body entry register at the cremation ground matched with the specimen signatures of main accused, Radhey Shyam.

The police, in their first chargesheet, had alleged that Shyam had manipulated the timing in the register. Quoting the disclosure statement of Shyam, they had said that Shyam changed the timing in the death register to destroy evidence.

The supplementary charge sheet factored in the forensic and scientific evidence gathered during the investigation.

The girl who belonged to a Dalit family in a village near Delhi Cantonment was found dead by her parents at a local crematorium on August 1, sparking protests by activists and politicians in the national capital.

Police later filed a chargesheet on August 28, charging the four accused of rape, wrongful confinement, murder, destruction of evidence, and under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Prevention of Atrocities Act.

The court on Tuesday took note of the supplementary chargesheet and said that it would hear the arguments on the framing of charges on December 3.

Advocate LK Verma, Shyam’s counsel, said that the police have not given any evidence to show that the girl had been raped before being “suffocated” to death. “There is no material to show that the minor was raped before her death as no semen has been found on the clothes of the accused or the burnt clothes of the deceased. There is also nothing on record that the victim was strangled.

“Even the statement of the father recorded by the magistrate does not mention the casteist slurs referred to in the FIR. Hence the sections of SC/ST Act could not have been added to the present case,” Verma said, adding that the statement of the father given to the police was not on record along with other documents.

In its primary chargesheet, police maintained that the death of the minor did not take place due to electrocution and instead the girl was smothered by Shyam during the sexual assault.

Senior advocate Geeta Luthra said the definition of rape has been expanded by a 2013 amendment such that it includes many types of sexual assault. “The result is that the absence of semen cannot necessarily result always in an acquittal. There will be cases that would still come under the definition of sexual assault under section 376 IPC, i.e., rape, even if semen is absent,” the lawyer said on the police’s findings.