JUSTICE DELAYED BUT NOT DENIED
Ruchika Kin Want Him Punished For Abetment Of Suicide Too
Chandigarh: Former Haryana DGP S P S Rathore was thrown behind bars on Tuesday, 20 years after he molested 14-year-old Ruchika Girhotra, driving her to shame and suicide, and artfully dodged the judicial system using his office and khaki intimidation. The Chandigarh district court dismissed his appeal against his conviction and enhanced his sentence from six months to one-and-a-half years.Amid high drama, Rathore was whisked away by CBI officers to the Burail Model jail after the verdict, where he was frisked like an ordinary convict. Jail officials said he was strip-searched for concealed weapons and his necktie, wristwatch, sunglasses and wallet were handed over to his wife, Abha, who was his counsel during the hearing.
Rathore, who retired in 2002, seven years after the young tennis player took her life, was put in barrack number 10, meant for undertrials and convicted police officers, to segregate them from other criminals. A doctor was called for and an ECG machine brought in after he complained of chest pain, something that’s become commonplace for powerful criminals to try and slip away to the comfort of a hospital bed.
Gone was the grin on his face, plastered on TV and newspaper front-pages after his conviction last December, drawing the nation’s wrath. However, Rathore told TOI while coming out of the court, “The smile is on my face and it will remain.’’
Ruchika’s family, for whom the trauma of losing their daughter was compounded by police harassment orchestrated by Rathore, is now looking forward to the verdict in the abetment of suicide case. “It doesn’t matter that the sentence awarded is one-and-ahalf years or two years because justice has been delivered. The court has taken the side of righteous people. But the battle will continue for justice in the abetment of suicide case,’’ Ruchika’s father Subhash Girhotra said outside the courtroom.
PAST CATCHES UP: S P S Rathore taken to Burail jail in Chandigarh on Tuesday
As police officer,
his role was to protect the public. As president of the Haryana Lawn Tennis Association, his role was to train budding players for India. But he failed in both duties by molesting a minor girl. People are afraid to send minor girls to playgrounds due to the presence of such persons
—Judge Gurbir Singh
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