Senior official directed to trace missing rape victims

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has expressed concern over the disappearance of two rape victims and asked senior Pune police officials to investigate allegations of the petitioner that the officers investigating the rape case were trying to weaken the case as they were also accused in it.

The petitioner also alleged that the accused police officers could have been instrumental in the disappearance of the two girls from a special protection units at Delhi. The petitioner had prayed for the girls to be traced as well as investigation to be transferred to the CBI.

The two cases pertain to the rape of a minor girl from Nepal and a 21-year-old girl from West Bengal in 2015. Both the victims were allegedly targeted by a prostitution racket after luring them with lucrative jobs in Pune.

A division bench of Justices Ranjit Patil and Revati Mohite Dere was hearing a criminal writ filed by Delhi-based advocate and activist Anuja Kapoor, who claimed that the rape victims — a minor girl and a major girl, she had rescued from Pune last year and taken to Delhi had disappeared from the SPU in which they were both kept.

The advocate told the court that she feared the worst for the two girls and alleged that Pune police that was investigating the case had a role in the disappearance of the girls.

According to Kapoor, the victims had been lured by a Pune-based group involved in human trafficking in 2014. “The minor girl was lured with the prospect of working in a beauty parlour and earning Rs 50,000 per month while the major girl was offered an opportunity to become a model. The group first got the minor to Pune and after three months took her to Goa where the major girl was also brought.

The duo was then raped by around 104 persons in Goa and other cities where they were taken. All the while the girls faced torture and rape till they managed to escape. That is when I met them and decided to fight for them,” said Ms Kapoor.

Ms Kapoor further informed the court that as the human trafficking group was based in Pune, cases were registered in Viman Nagar and Chandan Nagar police stations.

She further alleged that two police officials who were investigating the racket happened to be part of the 104 accused.