The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday granted bail to a Jammu and Kashmir Police sub-inspector who had been convicted for destroying evidence in the 2018 Kathua rape case.
A division bench of Justice Tejinder Singh Dhindsa and Justice Vinod Bhardwaj ordered the suspension of Anand Dutta’s remaining sentence and granted bail on his furnishing surety bonds. In June 2019, a sessions court in Punjab’s Pathankot had sentenced Dutta to five years imprisonment.
Dutta had challenged the local court order in the Punjab and Haryana High Court and asked for the suspension of the sentence during pendency of his appeal.
Sub-Inspector Anand Dutta was one of the six accused convicted for taking a bribe of Rs 4 lakh from the Sanji Ram (prime accused) to sabotage the rape case in which a 8-year-old girl from the Bakarwal community was gang-raped by a temple priest and others in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua.
The victim’s mutilated body was found four days later in a nearby forest in Kathua on January 17. The girl was allegedly abducted on January 10.
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Dutta, who was awarded 5 years rigorous imprisonment in the Kathua rape case, was convicted for offences under Section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of an offence or giving false information), Section 34 (common intention) and Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of Jammu and Kashmir State Ranbir Penal Code (RPC).
On June 10, 2019, the three convicts Sanji Ram, Parvesh Kumar and Deepak Khajuria were sentenced to life imprisonment. Three police personnel, Dutta, Head Constable Tilak Raj and SPO Surender Verma, had been held guilty for hampering with material evidence and sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment.