- Tuesday, April 23, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
A LAWMAKER from southern Indian state of Telangana was on Tuesday (7) booked for allegedly unveiling the identity of a schoolgirl who was allegedly gang-raped inside a Mercedes car in an upscale locality of state capital Hyderabad last month, by releasing pictures and videos related to the incident, according to the police.
Under the Indian Penal Code’s Section 228A, revealing the identity of rape survivors or any other details that may reveal it is prohibited.
India’s Hindutsan Times newspaper cited the police as saying that M Raghunandan Rao, who is from prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, was booked after a lawyer named Karam Komireddy lodged a complaint. A local police officer cited the complaint and said that it mentioned Rao releasing the pictures and videos at a press conference that he addressed at the BJP’s office in Telangana.
I’m a law abiding citizen. I’ll face this case legally. The case registered against me was filed by Congress. The party stands with me, those levelling allegations on me are: BJP MLA Raghunandan Rao booked for allegedly revealing identity of victim in Jubilee Hills gangrape case pic.twitter.com/ZcFhpBKhm9
— ANI (@ANI) June 7, 2022
“It shows the MLA [member of legislative assembly] is interfering in the administration of justice and character assassination of the victim and it might have caused the minor victim a lot of distress,” the officer said, quoting the complainant, according to the HT report.
Rao represents the Dubbak consitutency in the state’s Medak district since 2020.
Komireddy said the pictures and videos of the survivor went viral on social media after Rao’s press conference.
“Rao’s disclosures to the media were against the directions of the Supreme Court and also Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, which prohibits the disclosure of a child’s identity in any form of media… Section 23 of the POCSO [Protection of Children from Sexual Offences] Act, 2012, …states that no information/photo of a child should be published in any form of media,” he said.
Komireddy also moved the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the Telangana State Commission for Protection of Child Rights over the issue, the daily report said.
Rao had said earlier that he was not afraid of the complaints. The photographs and the videos did not show the face or any other identification marks of the girl, nor mentioned her name. “I released the pictures and video to expose the accused who were involved in the crime. There is a conspiracy to protect All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leaders and their children involved in the incident.”
