New Delhi: Days after several administration officials had publicly played down the possibility of the Hathras girl having been raped, a forensic laboratory report has confirmed the existence of two deep vaginal injuries in victim’s body, a senior home department official said on Sunday,
“The report from the Forensic Science Laboratory, Agra, came on Saturday evening, confirming two deep injuries in her vagina,” the official told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity.
“These injuries are not possible without internal invasion. The report is silent on rape but the injuries suggest she was sexually assaulted.”
“The lab’s mandate was not to suggest whether there was rape but only to examine the girl’s organs for injuries. The state government has not yet made the report public,” the official said to The Telegraph
“The medical report from JN Medical College, Aligarh, where she was treated before being shifted to Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital, had not mentioned this injury,” the home department official said.
“The post-mortem report (from Safdarjung Hospital) only said that her spinal cord injury was the cause of death.”
“The victim had in a statement from her deathbed confirmed gang rape. She had said she had escaped earlier attempts at sexual assault by Ravi— one of the four accused — but was overpowered by him and others this time,” police sources said.
Additional director-general of police Prashant Kumar had on Thursday insisted that sperms had not been found in the victim’s vagina and that there were no injuries to the private parts of the victim.
The victim’s family, who believe the police tried to protect the accused, have alleged that the force refused to add the gang-rape charge to that of attempted murder for eight days before yielding to the pressure of public protests.
“Even if the gang-rape charge is dropped and the accused are convicted of murder, they would be sentenced to life imprisonment. But if the charge of gang rape is added to murder and brutality — the victim’s tongue was chopped off and her neck broken — the courts would be likelier to consider the crime rarest of the rare and hand out the death sentence,” legal experts said.
On Saturday, BJP hard-liner Vinay Katiyar had said there was no evidence that the girl had been gang-raped.
“It’s wrong to say she was gang-raped. She died of spinal injuries,” Katiyar said.
The home department official said: “I don’t know on what basis these officials and politicians claimed there was no rape. They could surely have waited the three days that the forensic lab took to examine the viscera and send the report.”