Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Amid growing outrage over the tardy response by Delhi Police on December 16, as revealed by the male friend of the Delhi gang-rape victim, the Union Home Ministry on Monday initiated an independent probe into the allegations made by the eyewitness.
The probe would be conducted by a joint secretary level officer of the MHA. The official would question the boy on the serious allegations he made on the Delhi Police’s response. Later, he would also seek a response from the police.
Sources told Zee News that the probe may be a time-bound one given the seriousness of the allegations.
The MHA probe is in addition to the committee of enquiry formed under Justice Usha Mehra which will reconstruct the events leading to the December 16 Delhi gang-rape, identify lapses by police and other agencies and fix responsibility for the crime.
The committee will submit a report in three months that will be placed in Parliament with the government’s action-taken report.
The 23-year-old Braveheart’s friend had - on Jan 04 - spoken for the first time in front of the nation and exclusively told Zee News about the shocking apathy displayed by Delhi Police officials and also bemoaned public apathy after both of them had been badly injured and thrown out of the bus after she was gang-raped by six men.
The victim’s friend rued the fact that three PCR vans arrived at the scene after about 30 to 45 minutes, but wasted time in deciding under which police station’s jurisdiction the case fell.
He said nobody, including the police, gave them clothes or called an ambulance. “They were just watching us,” he said, adding that after repeated requests, someone gave him a part of a bed sheet to cover his friend.
“My friend was bleeding profusely; I was more concerned about her. But instead of taking us to a nearby hospital, they (police) took us to a hospital (Safdarjung) that was far away.”
The victim’s friend said that he carried his badly injured friend to the PCR van on his own as “the policemen didn’t help us because my friend was bleeding profusely and they were probably worried about their clothes”.
The Delhi Police had refuted allegations made by the male friend of gang-rape victim about delay in taking them to hospital and said that PCR vans reached the spot within no time after receiving the call.
Joint Commissioner of Police (South-West) Vivek Gogia dismissed allegations that police response was tardy and the PCR vans wasted time in taking them to a hospital by arguing over jurisdiction of the case. “There was no issue over jurisdiction of the case as PCR vans do not operate under police stations and their operation is regulated by control room at police headquarters,” he said.
Delhi Police had also filed an FIR against Zee News over the broadcast of the sinter view with the friend of the Braveheart girl.
Zee News Editor Sudhir Chaudhary said, “We will still face the atrocities of police, the system and the government, as we have been facing for the last few months including on Friday, when an FIR was logged against Zee News and I being the final authority was interrogated in a police station instead of being appreciated for being a responsible and a respectable journalist and broadcaster.”
“Interrogation at the police station was only directed towards ‘Do not show the truth which is against the system’ otherwise you will suffer and will have to face police action and atrocities,” he said.
