We are satisfied with CBI probe in Ruchika case: Anand Prakash

CHANDIGARH - Anand Prakash, the complainant in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation and suicide case, Friday said he was satisfied with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials who met him about the case.

I am quite satisfied with the CBI officials. They listened to us very patiently and we told them about everything related to the case since Aug 12, 1990, Prakash told reporters, after coming out of CBI camp office here Friday evening.

We told them how the then police officials manipulated the records and evidence to shield (former Haryana top cop S.P.S.) Rathore and how Ruchika was expelled from the school at his behest. We also told them in detail about Rathores lies and atrocities, he added.

After Ruchika was molested by Rathore and later committed suicide, it was her friend and classmate Aradhana’s father Anand Prakash and her mother who persued the case against the former Haryana police chief for over 19 years until he was convicted and sentenced two weeks ago.

Prakash and S.C. Girhotra, father of Ruchika, joined fresh investigations launched by the CBI Friday, in the nearly two-decade-old case.

A CBI team from its New Delhi headquarters met Girhotra and Prakash at their camp office here. Prakash came out around 6 p.m. while Girhotra was still inside the office.

Prakash, who remained inside the CBIs camp office for over seven hours, said: The CBI officials did not ask me any specific question and they only listened to whatever I told them. They have recorded the entire statement.

Talking about Veena Girhotra, Prakash said: There is a lady named Veena but there is no Veena Girhotra. Veena was looking after the children but she never married S.C. Girhotra.

She is a married woman, her husband is alive and their daughter is settled in Australia. Now without divorcing her husband, how can she marry anyone else? stated Prakash.

Abha Rathore, wife and counsel of S.P.S. Rathore, said in the court that S.C. Girhotra had married Veena.

Incidentally, Girhotra and Anand Prakash had not even responded to the summons sent to them by the special investigation team (SIT) set up by the Haryana police earlier to investigate three fresh cases registered against Rathore.

Both had accused the SIT of doing things to shield Rathore. They had said that they had no faith in the Haryana police SIT, while SIT chief Shatrujit Kapoor said the two men had not made themselves available.

Rathore was convicted Dec 21 by a CBI special court here for the molestation of budding tennis player Ruchika Girhotra Aug 12, 1990, in Haryana’s Panchkula town, 10 km from here.

Ruchika committed suicide three years after the incident after Haryana police harassed her family and tortured her younger brother, Ashu, after implicating him in false car theft cases.