Click to play videoMumbai: For the 23-year-old American student who was allegedly gangraped in Mumbai, the ordeal may have just begun.
Even as police claim that the investigations are underway and final medical reports are still awaited, officials have chosen to let out the preliminary findings of a secondary medical report based on a urine sample, which lists out the possibility that the victim consumed cannabis, an illegal recreational drug.
Independent legal experts now say such a report becomes a classic defense counsel's tool to discredit the victim's statements.
“They would first discredit the victim to suggest her consent to the act. Secondly, they would say that her testimony is not full of inspiring confidence,” High Court Advocate Pervez Memon said.
Police claim the victim said in her statement: “I do not like cigarettes and did not smoke. Then one of the boys rolled a joint with hashish and marijuana in it and some of the guys smoked that joint. Then we went back into the bar.”
Other medical findings of the physical examination of the accused show that there were no marks of body injury or struggle on neither the six accused nor the victim. This is a finding that legal experts say doesn't amount to much if the victim was under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
Meanwhile, forensic science laboratory (FSL) sources said that other reports on the victim's vaginal smear and blood samples would be completed by next week.
Experts also suggest that though the medical reports are important, the victim's own testimony and the final FSL reports on the examination of the vaginal swabs is crucial in rape cases.
“The most important evidence is the victim’s statement supported with the medical evidence because here there are no eyewitnesses in this case,” Chief Public Prosecutor RV Kinni said.
The defense lawyers are likely to file a bail application on April 28 when all accused except one will be produced before the Kurla court.
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