Suspects Of Statutory Rape Of A Minor Remain At Large
By Basil Fernando –July 14, 2016
Basil Fernando
A mother of a 14 year old girl made a complaint to the Haputhale police, that her daughter had been abducted by two men who were the conductor and the driver of a private school bus that takes children to school. The girl was forcibly taken to the driver’s house and despite of her pleadings to let her go the driver then raped her.
The girl was later taken to a judicial medical officer at the Diyathalawa Government hospital and in his report the JMO confirmed that the girl was raped.
After the complaint was made to the police station, the accused driver and the conductor were both brought to the police station and where the girl identified both of them as the culprits of the abduction and the rape.
However, to the utter surprise of the family of the young girl, both suspects were released on the same day and they now remain at large. The offences of statutory rape and abduction are non-bailable offences.
The family of the girl have complained that they suspect foul play on the part of the police as the driver is relatively an affluent person in the area and the girl belongs to a family of estate workers, from a Estate in Haputhale. Ethnically estate Tamils, they are a devoted catholic family, well known to the people and the parish priest in the area. The family believes that their weak economic position as estate workers and their minority status ethnically and by way of religion is the cause for neglect of their complaints by the local police. The Assistant Superintendents of the police of the area have also been informed about this crime.
Investigations into crime is a primary obligation of the State. Investigations into serious crimes such as statutory rape and kidnapping are imperative duties of the police acting on behalf of the state. The failure to investigate and to prosecute such serious offences threatens the very idea of the state itself. If the State fails to investigate and prosecute serious crimes, the very legitimacy of the existence of the state is itself being challenged. The challenge to the state in this instant comes from the local police station and its superior officers such as the Assistant Superintendents of Police (ASPs). It is the duty of the IGP and the Government to take the officer in charge of the Haputhale police and the ASP who is supervising this police station to task, immediately and take appropriate action to investigate this crime.
As the two accused in the rape and kidnapping has been identified and have even been brought into the police station, and were thereafter released, creates a reasonable suspicion that some kind of foul play is involved. If, the suspects of serious crimes can escape by way of resorting to bribery or to any other such influence, the entire social order is threatened by such actions.
