Ruchika case: Rathore gets enhanced sentence, arrested, to go to jail

Mangalore Today News Network

Chandigarh, May 25:  A court in Chandigarh today enhanced former Haryana top cop SPS Rathore’s sentence to one-and-a-half years for molesting teenager Ruchika Girhotra 20 years ago. Rathore has been taken into custody and will go to jail.

Rathore, a former Director General of Police, had challenged the six-month sentence awarded to him by a CBI court in December last for molesting 15-year-old Ruchika Girhotra in August 1990.

Ruchika’s family and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had also filed petitions seeking enhancement of the sentence to the maximum two years.

Rathore had molested teenager Ruchika in Panchkula on August 12, 1990. Three years later, the budding tennis player committed suicide. The family has alleged that it was harassed continuously at the behest of Rathore after Ruchika was molested, leading to her suicide.

Today’s verdict is only on the molestation charge. Ruchika’s family has also filed cases of abetment to suicide against Rathore.

ruchikafather-ruci_rathr2.jpgAnand Prakash, the father of Ruchika’s closest friend, Aradhana, who witnessed the molestation 20 years ago, welcomed the verdict and said this would send out the signal that the powerful were not above the law.  Prakash and his family waged a long battle for justice for Ruchika.

Ruchika’s father SC Girhotra said, "Our stand has been vindicated...There is no difference between one and a half and two years." This he said was the first battle won in the war the family was waging. He said the family would continue to press with the abetment of suicide charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

The lawyer representing Ruchika’s family, Pankaj Bharadwaj, said it was a "historic order" and he was "satisfied with the sentence" and would bolster the faith of the common man in the system of justice.