Click to play videoNew Delhi: A former CBI officer claims he had recommended that SPS Rathore, the former police officer convicted of molesting a girl, be charged with abetment to suicide but he was ignored.
RM Singh probed the death of Ruchika Girhotra, 14, when he was joint director, investigation, in the Central Bureau of Investigation.
He alleges that Rathore, who was Haryana director general of police (DGP) then, tried to influence him in his investigation.
Ruchika, a budding tennis player, committed suicide three years after Rathore allegedly molested her on August 12, 1990.
“Mr Rathore used to come to my office; he used to call me up on phone; he called at my residence too. He tried to influence me. He started coming to me at a time when the file (related to investigation) was in my office,” Singh told CNN-IBN.
Singh alleged that there was “ample evidence” against Rathore for abetment in Ruchika’s suicide but the CBI failed to use it.
“I strongly recommended that the charge of abetment to suicide is laid out in the case - there is ample evidence in record for this. There were certainly elements who wanted to harbour Mr Rathore by not including this charge of abetment to suicide,” he said.
Singh claimed the courts were willing to accept the charge of abetment to suicide but the CBI didn’t use the opportunity.
“Whatever the CBI could not do or did not do and the courts were trying to do it the CBI opposed it. The CBI should have grabbed this opportunity in saying that they don't have any objection and if the court feels satisfied that the case should be tried under abetment to suicide.”
Former CBI director RK Raghavan refused to comment on the allegations.
“No question of allegations. I can't comment on something that happened 10 years ago. I don't know,” he told CNN-IBN.
Rathore was on December 21 convicted by a special CBI court in Chandigarh and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and fined Rs 1,000. However, he got bail the same day and didn’t have to go to prison.
Meanwhile, Ruchika’s teacher said she is deeply pained to know that the school authorities expelled Ruchika under Rathore’s pressure.
“Being a teacher I am appalled at the attitude of the school. They had the audacity to compel a promising student to leave the school. They came under the influence of Rathore and the police. They are bringing up our future generation under the influence of bureaucracy and police. I'm deeply pained with this thought,” she said.
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