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'NO, I was
not raped! I just fell from my bicycle'
WSN Bureau
CHANDIGARH: More than four months after his maid-who-doubledas-
massseur claimed she was raped by Akali Dal MLA Gaganjit Singh
Barnala, the woman suddenly did a somersault, telling the court that
she had never alleged rape, that the bleeding was not because of the
rape and she had in fact fallen off a bicycle which led to the
injury.
As a shocked court held in-camera heard the woman making a complete
volte face after having recorded a main detailed challan and two
supplementary statements, it was clear that the dramatic had
happened. Gaganjit Singh Barnala, who had spent a month behind bars
in judicial custody, apart from the earlier police custody, walked
free. The MLA was arrested on August 12 this year after the same
woman made a statement while admitted to the General Hospital here
that she was raped by the MLA at his official flat. Last week, she
told the Additional District and Session Judge (ADSJ), Mr Ravi
Kumar, that she had suffered an abdominal injury after falling from
her bicycle and thereafter she started bleeding. On being repeatedly
asked by the court about any pressure forcing her to retract from
her previous statement, she replied in the negative.
While five of the seven prosecution witnesses recorded their
statements, the woman doctor, who attended on the victim on the day
of the incident, was not examined. clearly, the prosecution was
weak, and, coupled with a lack of evidence, the case seemed to be
headed for oblivion. Gaganjit Singh Barnala had earlier claimed
political conspiracy behind the rape allegations while his father,
currently the Governor of Tamil Nadu and earlier a former Akali
Chief Minister of Punjab, had held a meeting with his Punjab
counterpart to plead for his son’s case. The episode also witnessed
a pregnant silence by almost the entire opposition, a silence whose
roots lay in the many-faced politics pursued by the Barnalas who
enjoy proximity to CM Amarinder Singh while remaining a force to be
reckoned with within the Akali Dal and still manage to flirt with
the anti-Badal nascent third front. The police had earlier claimed
that they had video recorded the preliminary statement of the victim
but no video CD was produced in the
court. The investigating police officials also failed to produce the
clothes, supposedly worn by the victim at the time of her alleged
rape.
20 December 2006
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