Hyderabad: Taxing times for sleuths to crack mystery behind false rape cases

Hyderabad: There is no denying the fact that the Police department has put in a lot of efforts to resolve the mystery of the rape of two sisters at Gandhi Hospital. Even as the department was on its toes to resolve the mystery, it was challenged with another rape of a girl at Santoshnagar. Ultimately the police came under the lens of critics as the opposition jumped the ring to question the security of womenin the State.

But, within a span of three days, the police were able to resolve the Gandhi Hospital rape mystery. It proved that the allegations levelled by the victim did not stand ground. Simultaneously, the girl who alleged rape by an auto driver at Santoshnagar also proved to be futile.

The important thing to consider by the citizen is the amount of time, resources, manpower, taxpayers' money that have gone into the investigation of such cases have all gone to waste.

As the Hyderabad Police Commissioner, pointed out, in investigating the rape case of Gandhi hospital victim, the police had to check 800 hours of video footage. 500 CCTV cameras were scanned, while the number of officers assigned to resolve the case was more than 500 from all police wings.

An officer on condition of anonymity said, "The police department has spent lakhs of rupees to investigate one case of Gandhi Hospital because the officers were tasked to trace the missing woman. To trace her, the officers were continuously moving. It leads to expenditure on fuel. Similarly, the officers at the desk were checking footage which amounted to expenditure on digital data. To get the cell phone records the department had to pay mobile companies. Apart from that, there will be miscellaneous expenditures that will go into investigation such as tipping off informers. Now, all this expenditure has gone for a toss and it is all taxpayers' money."

Ironically, it is not the first case that has happened in the city. In the past one year there were two such incidents that had created a sensation. In the first incident, which happened in August 2020, a 25-year-old woman alleged that she was raped by 139 men. She filed a complaint at Panjagutta PS, but after investigation, it proved to be a hoax. In the second incident, a 19-year-old pharmacy student claimed that she was gang-raped by an auto driver and his friends at Keesara. As soon as this news broke out netizens jumped the queue and started demanding action against the accused. There were many who also demanded that the auto driver and his friends should be shot dead, as it happened in the Disha case. But, the case also proved to be false.

Pallavi, an engineering student, opined that "If such fake incidents are reported to the police then there is also a possibility that when a genuine crime occurs, they might assume it to be a hoax and take it is easy. It is very important for every citizen, especially, women that they should not take the law for granted and should not report fake cases to the police."