Haryana police wants Rathore cases to go to CBI

PANCHKULA - The Haryana police Tuesday recommended that the three fresh cases registered against disgraced former Haryana police chief S.P.S. Rathore be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for further investigation.

“We have registered the third FIR (first information report) against him (Rathore). We have recommended that all cases be handed over to the CBI for investigation,” Panchkula Superintendent of Police Maneesh Chaudhary told IANS.

The Panchkula police Tuesday filed a case of abetment to suicide (Section 306 of Indian Penal Code) in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case. He would be arrested only after investigations into his role, police said.

Other police officers, who slapped false car theft cases on Ruchika’s brother Ashu between 1990 and 1993 and tortured him in custody, compelling her to commit suicide, have also been named in the fresh FIR against Rathore.

Ruchika, who was molested by Rathore here Aug 12, 1990, when she was just over 15 years old, had committed suicide Dec 28, 1993, three years after her molestation, by consuming a poisonous insecticide.

Rathore was last week booked by the Panchkula police in two different cases, charging him with attempt to murder, forging and tampering evidence of Ruchika’s death, criminal conspiracy and wrongful confinement. Most of the charges slapped against him in both FIRs are non-bailable ones.

The complaints for the two FIRs were made by Ruchika’s father S.C. Girhotra and brother Ashu.

But Rathore Friday managed to secure interim relief on his anticipatory bail application from the district and sessions court here till Jan 7, when his bail plea in these two cases comes up for hearing again.

Rathore was convicted by a CBI special court in Chandigarh Dec 21 for Ruchika’s molestation and sentenced to six months rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000.