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Police investigating ‘smear campaign’ against deceased Unnao rape victim
Police said on Tuesday they had taken note of a campaign that was underway to allegedly smear the Unnao rape victim who was burnt alive on Thursday. They said that
Police said on Tuesday they had taken note of a campaign that was underway to allegedly smear the Unnao rape victim who was burnt alive on Thursday. They said that snapshots of the victim’s whatsapp chat and other material were being shared on the social media and reportedly showed her in a bad light.
SN Sabat, additional director general of police, Lucknow zone, said, “We have taken note of this campaign. I have asked the inspector general of police (Lucknow range) and the superintendent of police Bareilly to look into who are the people behind this campaign.”
He said the investigation would be comprehensive. “It will go deep into establishing if this is a targeted campaign to garner mileage in the court,” said Sabat.
While the Unnao police have also been asked to send in a report on this issue, SP (Unnao) Vikrant Veer was unavailable for his comments.
Over the last two days, the victim’s chats with her lawyer in Rae Bareli and a notarised contract, purportedly of her marriage with one of the five people accused of burning her alive, have flooded the social media. The chats -- running into around 200 pages -- were available with the Unnao police but somehow selective parts got leaked into the social media.
A police official of Unnao aware of details of the investigation said on the condition of anonymity, “These screenshots / printouts of the chats are clearly aimed at building a case against the victim by attacking her character. The question is -- how were they leaked? The victim’s phone was in the custody of the police and the material downloaded and shared was in the knowledge of only a select few.”
He said the investigation would try to uncover whether the leak took place in Unnao or in Rae Bareli, or the material was photo-shopped to achieve some ulterior objective.
To recall, the woman was allegedly gangraped in December 2018 and set on fire on Thursday when she was on her way to catch a train to Rae Bareli to attend a hearing in her case. After receiving 90% burns, she was first admitted to a hospital in Lucknow and later airlifted to Safdarjung hospital in Delhi where she passed away on Friday night.
