On Thursday, April 6, L. Sridhar, the judge of XI Additional District and Sessions Judge-cum-Special Court under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, acquitted all the 13 accused in the Vakapalli gangrape case, as they were not found guilty for the offences under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 376(2)(g) of Section 3(2)(v) of the SC and ST (PoA) Act, 1989.
The acquittal has brought the curtains down on the trial which began in 2018, thanks to Supreme Court’s 2017 directive to finish it in six months.
But the victims of the alleged crime, who stood steadfast in their demand for justice all these years, are likely to ask whether they have any legal remedies left, in the context of the trial court pleading helplessness, citing shoddy investigation by the police from the start.
The incident and its aftermath
Vakapalli, a tribal hamlet in Visakhapatnam district in Andhra Pradesh, was witness to the gangrape of 11 tribal women, allegedly by 13 personnel of Andhra Pradesh’s elite anti-Naxal force, the Greyhounds, on August 20, 2007. The cops, belonging to a Special Party of 21 policemen, had gone to the village in G.Madugula mandal of ASR district, to conduct combing operations. Ten of the victims were in the age group of 20 to 30 years, and all of them were married. Two of the 11 women have since died.
The Greyhounds allegedly entered the village at about 6 am on August 20, 2007, when all the able-bodied men and youth were away in the fields having left as early as 3.30 am to 4 am, as they usually do, to carry out podu (slash and burn cultivation) and other farm operations. The women were threatened and allegedly raped at gunpoint. Several women allegedly managed to save themselves by running away from the village and hiding in the forest. The Greyhounds left at about 8 am.
It was only after the Vakapalli men returned from their work that word was sent to the Paderu Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA, Lake Raja Rao, at around noon. The MLA rushed to the village along with media persons from Paderu (divisional headquarters) after which the news filtered out by around 3 pm. The women went along with the MLA to the Paderu sub-collector and recounted the incident upon which he asked the Deputy Superintendent of Police to register a case.
What followed has been described as an elaborate cover-up exercise.
Soon after the media began flashing the news of the Vakapalli rape, the then Andhra Pradesh DGP, M.A. Basith, gave a clean chit to the Greyhounds accused, and alleged that it was the Maoists who had provoked the women to make such allegations so as to undermine the morale of the police force. Soon after, the then state home minister, Jana Reddy, endorsed it, only to modify it in the face of public protests to promise justice if charges were proven. Crucial evidence, which could have been collected and preserved in the immediate aftermath of the incident, was lost due to official indifference to the necessities of an impartial probe.
As the Greyhounds’ counterparts among the local police were doing nothing to bring the accused to book, it led to demands for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe, which the state government didn’t accept. The 11 women went on a fast for seven days at Paderu. It was only after the high court, in a Public Interest Litigation, directed the CB-CID to take up the investigation that it was taken up.
However, the CB-CID’s initial findings were that there were no injuries on the women, no semen stains and that the women were unable to identify the accused. The women then moved a protest petition in the Paderu court which believed them and took cognisance of the case. The Magistrate wrote that rape can be perpetrated without leaving physical injuries and semen stains. Within a week, the accused cops petitioned the AP high court and obtained a stay of the proceedings. “The victims, being illiterate, may not have resisted the accused out of fear and thus did not sustain any external injuries,” the Magistrate had held in his order.
The Magistrate reasoned that since the mother tongue of the victims was Kondu, it was not natural to find minor contradictions in their statements. He also suggested that the lack of medical evidence of sexual intercourse was not at all fatal to the complainants’ case, and there might have been an attempt to commit rape.
On April 26, 2012, Justice B. Seshasayana Reddy of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, in a reasoned order, had held that the high court’s inherent power should not be exercised to stifle a legitimate prosecution of the accused. Although the trial court had initiated proceedings against 21 accused policemen, Justice Reddy had removed eight from facing trial for he had found that they formed the contour party, which was to be around the village to meet any eventuality, and it was only the 13 others who had entered the village to corner Chandru, a wanted militant of the People’s War Group. The police alleged that they let Chandru off fearing threats to their safety from the women of the village.
All through this, the Vakapalli women and their relatives demonstrated remarkable courage and resilience. They resisted harassment, intimidation, generous offers of money and even plain threats.
Supreme Court’s intervention
On September 1, 2017, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices Arun Mishra and the late Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar, expressed its shock and dismay over the case being dragged for 10 years, and dismissed the special leave petition filed by the accused A. Ravi Kumar and 12 others, and issued directions for their expeditious conclusion of the trial within six months and hearing on a day-to-day basis.
But it took six years for the trial to be completed.
On Thursday, April 6, the judge ordered that Sivananda Reddy, one of the Investigating Officers (IOs) in the case, be referred to the Apex Committee constituted by the Government of Andhra Pradesh for taking action “for his failure to conduct a proper investigation”. The court held that the acquittal was primarily because of the failure of the two Investigating Officers, including the late B.Ananda Rao.
Also read: SC Fast Tracks Trial of Anti-Naxal Force Personnel Accused of Raping 11 Tribal Women in 2007
According to the report, The Terrible Cost of an Inhuman Counter-Insurgency, brought out by the Human Rights Forum of Andhra Pradesh, (2013), and available online here, Rao went to the village a full two weeks after taking charge of the investigation. Also, he allegedly tried to make the survivors change their version with the promise of money and kind.
The court held that the acquittal was primarily because of the failure of the two IOs in not conducting a fair and impartial investigation.
Significantly, the court, despite acquitting the policemen, has ordered that the rape survivors should be paid compensation through the District Legal Services Authority. The very fact that the court has ordered compensation to be paid to the survivors of gangrape shows that it reposed faith in their depositions, the Andhra Pradesh State Committee of the Human Rights Forum, (HRF) which assisted their quest for justice in this case, said in a press release.
The HRF has alleged that none of the procedures mandated by the criminal code was adhered to by the IOs. Also, it alleged that the medical examination followed by the forensic process was deeply vitiated.
The HRF claimed that the survivors bravely faced humiliation, and subjected themselves to strenuous cross-examination in a language that was alien to them.
Twists and turns
The case has seen several twists and turns.
The Supreme Court was partly responsible for the inordinate delay in the conclusion of the trial, because in 2012, another bench of Justices H.L. Dattu and Chandramauli Kr. Prasad had granted an interim stay on proceedings pending against the accused before the trial court at Paderu, which got vacated only in 2017.
In 2017, the Supreme Court was prudent enough to dismiss the accused’s plea for discharge on the grounds that there was no medical evidence pointing to the gangrape, and that there were discrepancies and variations in the witness’ accounts.
In January 2020, it was reported that a reserve inspector of the Armed Reserve Police submitted to the trial court that the department was unable to trace the Duty Roster and the Armoury General Diary in the case. The police were unable to produce the Destruction Register, in case the registers were destroyed.
In December 2020, V.S. Krishna, convener of the Human Rights Forum of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana units, was accused of influencing the Vakapalli rape survivors to falsely depose against policemen.
Are not the testimony of the victims and the available circumstantial evidence sufficient to ensure the conviction of the accused? Was the judge really helpless in ensuring the conviction of the accused in the absence of forensic evidence? Is there a basis for the appellate courts to direct retrial or reinvestigation of the case by an impartial investigative team?
The Special Public Prosecutor, S.Rajendra Prasad, appointed with the consent of the survivors, has alleged that the IO did not conduct a test identification parade (TIP) of the accused, immediately after taking over, and this resulted in loss of reliable evidence, due to passage of time. As the survivors were not able to recall the identity of the rapists, who were strangers to them, TIP, even if conducted later could not have helped the investigation.
Prasad told The Wire that he argued before the court that the accused in the case are not entitled to the benefit of doubt, because they were the beneficiaries of ‘brotherhood’ investigation which resulted in loss of crucial evidence to nail them.
But the court appears to have concluded that there was no alternative, but to acquit the accused, in the absence of evidence beyond reasonable doubt.