A mother of two young girls named Sarita, 25, alleged that two Haryana policemen — Head Constable Balraj Singh and Constable Sheelak Ram — had raped her in a police station in April 2008. The two policemen belong to a special unit which was set up to investigate special crimes and major murders.

In the FIR she had filed, she said that they had implicated her husband in a false theft case and asked her for sexual favours to ensure his release. When she refused to comply with their demands, they raped her.

After making numerous attempts to at least get the wheels of justice to begin to move, and failing to do so, she committed suicide on June 9, 2008 in broad daylight in the presence of several people at Police Headquarters. In a suicide note, she also said that the police officers had been issuing threats to have the case withdrawn.

Not too surprisingly, the Government sprung into action after this happened (although her body was left in public view loosely covered by a white cloth for hours before it was taken for a postmortem).

Officers were transferred, compensation was promised, her husband was assured a government job and an NGO, World Human Rights Protection Council President and advocate Ranjan Lakhanpal filed a PIL asking for a CBI probe into the matter.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court also took suo moto cognisance of the case and a Bench comprising Justices Permod Kohli and Rakesh Kumar Garg observed that ‘when the protectors of the law become perpetrators of crime, the life of the common man becomes miserable’.

This is not the first time the police have come under fire for behaviour such as this. The most well-known case of rape in a police station was that of a tribal teenage girl named Mathura in the 1970s. The trial court judge in that case called her a shocking liar although the High Court convicted the policemen — Tukaram and another — involved. The Supreme Court, however, then acquitted the policemen. The case aroused widespread outrage and the laws in rape were subsequently amended mainly as a result of what many considered to be an absurd decision in the Mathura case.

Now, under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code, which provides for an enhanced punishment in certain cases, whoever being a police officer commits rape:
1. within the limits of the police station to which he is appointed or
2. in the premises of any station house whether or not situated in the police station to which he is appointed or
3. on a woman in his custody or in the custody of a police officer subordinate to him
is liable to be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than ten years but which may be for life and shall also be liable to fine although the Court may, for adequate and special reasons to be mentioned in the judgment, impose a sentence of imprisonment of either description for a term of less than ten years.