Victims wash away evidence

Hyderabad: Justice B. Chandra Kumar of the AP High Court rued on Friday that often in rape cases, evidence was wiped out due to the victims’ ignorance. “Rape victims take a bath and wash their clothes after the incident. This wipes out blood stains and other key evidence in the case,” said Justice Kumar.

While referring to a recent instance of a girl speaking out about her father raping her after an awareness programme in her school, Justice Kumar stressed on the need of conducting such programmes in all schools and colleges.

He asked the AP Forensic Science Laboratory to take up such awareness programmes in institutions. Speaking on ‘Crime Reporting: Trends and Challenges’ organised by Crime Reporters Committee and Press Academy of AP in the city, Justice Kumar said, “The girl spoke about the rape by her father after an awareness campaign in her school regarding HIV infection though she was silent about the atrocities for two years.”

He asked crime reporters to work like detectives and not file news stories based on only the police version.

He also said adulteration, right from cooking oil to medicines, and economic crimes of different types were plaguing the society. There is a need to focus on these areas he added.

Justice Kumar also pointed out that land grabbing had taken a new turn wherein both the parties were filing petitions in court after the decree was issued and were asking to include survey numbers of government lands in order to encroach them.

Director of AP Police Academy, M. Malakondaiah, Andhra Pradesh State Forensic Science Laboratory director, Dr A. Sharada, Press Academy chairman, Tirumalagiri Surender and professor of Forensic Medicine, Dr M. Narayana Reddy, also took part in the meet.