A day after the Unnao victim was set ablaze by the five men, one of the two accused in the gangrape has filed a document in court claiming that he was admitted to the local Primary Health Centre (PHC) on the day of the rape.
According to the Indian Express report, Hari Shanker, father of one of the accused Shubam Trivedi, had presented the “medical registration slip” to the High Court seeking the removal of Shubham’s name from the FIR on the gangrape. Hari Shanker is also one among the five men under arrest for setting the Unnao woman on fire.
The medical registration slip claimed that Shubham was admitted to the PHC on December 10, 2018, and was only discharged five days later. The woman in her complaint had stated that she was gang-raped by Shubham and his friend Shivam, on December 12 last year. The FIR was registered on March 5 this year.
Rejecting the claims of the accused, 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.
Read: Unnao case: All you need to know about a ghastly crime born out of a troubled relationship
Dr Jitendra Yadav, Medical Officer (Ayush), who is now in charge of the PHC after checking the records confirmed that he 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 was 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 said while adding that the PHC does not admit any patient for more than 24 hours as it “neither has the facilities nor the specialists”.
The Medical officer also confirmed that the PHC has only six beds and around 14-15 medical staff, including four doctors, but no surgeons. The PHC has an operation theatre which is used mainly during monthly sterilisation camps.
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. He 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,” the Investigating officer said.
On the early hours of Thursday last week, Tthe 23-year-old rape survivor was set on fire by pouring kerosene on her by five men, including the duo who are accused of raping her a year ago. The incident occurred at Sindupur village under the Bihar police station area on the wee hours of Thursday and has caused tension in the area.
The rape accused and his friends dragged the woman outside of her village, took her into the fields and doused her in petrol before setting her on fire. She was raped by the five men in March while the police could manage to arrest only three of them and two others were still on the run.
Reportedly, the Unnao rape victim survivor was going to Raebareli with her parents to pursue the case at 4 am on Wednesday when she was attacked. The survivor was immediately rushed to the district hospital and then referred to Civil Hospital in Lucknow after her condition deteriorated.
All the five accused, including Hari Shankar Trivedi, Shivam and Shubham Trivedi, have been arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police.
