Few days back a 23-year-old gangrape victim was set on fire by five men, including the two accused in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao. The woman had suffered 90% burn injuries and was airlifted to Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital but died during treatment. A day after she was set ablaze by the five men, one of the two accused in the gangrape filed a document in court, claiming that he was admitted to the local Primary Health Centre (PHC) on the date of the alleged rape.
According to Indian Express, the officials at the Sumerpur PHC confirmed that the purported “medical registration slip” in the name of Shubham Trivedi is “fake”. In fact the officials also said that no patient by that name was admitted to the hospital on those dates.
Shubham's father Hari Shankar had presented the “medical registration slip” to the High Court, along with a writ petition seeking the removal of Shubham’s name from the FIR on the gangrape. Hari Shank is one among the five men under arrest for setting the Unnao woman on fire.
The medical registration slip shows that Shubham was admitted to the PHC on December 10, 2018 and discharged five days later. While the woman had told police that she was gangraped by Shubham and his friend Shivam, on December 12 last year. The FIR was registered on March 5 this year.
However, Dr Jitendra Yadav, Medical Officer (Ayush), who is now in charge of the PHC, told The Indian Express that they checked their records and “can confidently say that there was no patient by the name of Shubham Trivedi in the In-Patient Department (IPD) on the mentioned dates”.
“It is clearly an OPD slip and doesn’t mention the name of the doctor. Also, the signature with the PHC stamp is neither of MO (Medical Officer) Dr Rahul Verma or MO 2nd Dr Sagar Singh, who were posted here in December last year. Another important thing is that the serial number mentioned on the slip is 28290 — there is no way that many patients can be admitted in a PHC in one year,” Yadav told Indian Express, adding that the PHC doesn’t admit any patient for more than 24 hours as it “neither has the facilities nor the specialists”.
Rajesh Singh, the Investigating Officer (IO) in the gangrape case, said he is aware of the purported “medical slip” but it was not investigated as it never officially came to him. IO further added that Shubham’s father submitted the “slip” to the High Court, along with a writ petition which was ultimately cancelled by the court.
“Shubham’s father Hari Shankar had earlier given an affidavit to the Rae Bareli Superintendent of Police Swapnil Mamgain, claiming that on the day of the gangrape, his son was in Lucknow to appear for a competitive exam. When the case was transferred to me, I asked the father to provide me proof, like an, admit card, to support his claim, but they failed to provide that,” Indian Express quoted IO as saying.
“Later, they filed a writ in the High Court and presented this medical slip as proof. When the High Court asked me about this, I told the court about the affidavit they had submitted earlier (claiming Shubham was in Lucknow) and said that it was contradictory to this document (the “medical slip”). When asked by the court on the fake affidavit, their lawyer claimed he had been misguided by his client. The court dismissed their writ petition,” IO added.
The Unnao rape victim was set on fire by five people, including two men accused of raping her, last week when she was going to Rae Bareli to attend a court hearing.
She sustained more than 90 per cent injuries and was rushed to a government hospital in the district, later to be shifted to a hospital in Lucknow. She succumbed to her injuries at Safdarjang Hospital in New Delhi.
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