Six years after the CBI dropped abetment to suicide complaint against former DGP SPS Rathore in the Ruchika molestation case, Haryana Police on Tuesday brought back the charge against the disgraced officer by registering a fresh FIR.
The FIR, the third against Rathore since last week, has been registered on the complaint of Ruchika's brother Ashu which he filed on December 31, Superintendent of Police, Panchkula, Maneesh Chaudhary told the news agency. Besides Rathore, four other police officers - then Ambala SP K P Singh, ASI Jai Narayan, SI Prem Dutt and ASI Sewa Singh have been made co-accused in the FIR lodged at the Sector five Police Station here, police said. The maximum punishment under section 306 IPC (abetment to suicide) is ten years imprisonment. Rathore was recently handed down a lighter six months imprisonment by a CBI court at Chandigarh for having molested Ruchika Girhotra here on 12th August, 1990. The budding tennis player had attempted suicide at her Panchkula residence on 28th December, 1993 and died the following day. The earlier two FIRs against the top cop were registered on the complaints of Ruchika's father Subhash Chander Girhotra and Ashu for various offences, including attempt to murder, torture and harassment and doctoring the post-mortem report. The SP said that the local police has recommended that the third FIR also be entrusted to the seven-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by IGP (Security) S S Kapoor probing the case. Govt recommends withdrawal of police medal to Rathore The govt has recommended withdrawal of police medal given to former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore and announced that any police officer convicted for "moral turpitude" or bringing "disrepute or disrespect" to the service will be stripped of awards. "The Central Police Awards Committee (CPAC) has taken two primary decisions. The committee recommended to the President for the withdrawal of police medal given to former Haryana DGP S P S Rathore," Union Home Secretary Gopal K Pillai, who heads the committee, told reporters in Rathore, convicted for the molestation of teenager Ruchika Girhotra stands stripped off his 1985 police medal with this decision. "The CPAC has also taken a generic decision to authorize the Ministry of Home Affairs to recommend the withdrawal of police medal to all persons who are convicted for moral turpitude and for an act that brings disrespect to police forces, or any officer who is dismissed from the service for his act which brought disrepute to the police," Pillai said. With this decision, suspended IPS officer R K Sharma, convicted in the journalist Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, will also stand to lose his medal along with some other police officers. Earlier, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda recommended withdrawal of the police medal of Rathore who has been convicted in the Ruchika molestation case. In a letter to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, Hooda had said Rathore has brought "disrepute and bad name" to the state and the police force.
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