The Hindu : Front Page : Student stabs Rathore outside court

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Tuesday, Feb 09, 2010
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Student stabs Rathore outside court

Vrinda Sharma

Rathore later returned to court
for proceedings
The student ‘seemed to be mentally unstable,’ says police official

— Photo: Akhilesh Kumar

Policemen taking Utsav Sharma into custody, after he attacked former Haryana DGP S. P. S. Rathore in Chandigarh on Monday.

CHANDIGARH: The disgraced former Haryana police chief, S.P.S. Rathore, was stabbed by a 24-year-old student outside the district court complex in Chandigarh on Monday.

The attacker has been identified as Utsav Sharma from Varanasi pursuing postgraduate studies in animation and film design at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad.

Utsav stepped out of a media crowd and stabbed Rathore with a pocket knife in the neck and face before he was immediately overpowered by a policeman and taken to a nearby police station.

Senior Superintendent of Police S.S. Srivastava said the young man “seemed to be mentally unstable.” He was living in the city for just about a month. “It seems he was attacking Rathore to cause greater harm. He seems to have committed the stabbing in a fit of anger and under some psychological imbalance,” Mr. Srivastava said.

Rathore pulled out his handkerchief and put it on his bleeding cheek as he tried to regain composure. He was immediately taken to the nearest hospital and he returned to the court in blood-stained clothes after the lunch break, and the in-camera proceedings against him in a molestation case resumed.

Posing as a freelance journalist researching the case, Utsav mingled with reporters waiting for Rathore to cover the first day of the three-day hearing against his conviction which started on Monday.

Aradhana, a childhood friend of the girl who was molested by Rathore and who fought for her for over 19 years, condemned the attack on Rathore. “I have faith in the judiciary and so should everyone else have. This act is probably the rage that the public is feeling but acts of violence have no place in a civilised society.”

Incidentally, defence counsel and wife of Rathore, Abha, pleaded that the in-camera appeal hearings be conducted in the presence of only the investigating CBI, prosecution and defence counsel, as her husband had been the target of a malicious media campaign and was in danger of physical and mental harm from some elements.

The court is hearing two matters, one related to the appeal filed by Rathore against his conviction by a CBI special court for molestation and the second seeking enhancement of his sentence from six months to two years’ rigorous imprisonment by the CBI.

On December 21, 2009, a CBI special court held Rathore guilty of molesting the 15-year-old budding tennis player in Panchkula town on August 12, 1990. He was sentenced to six months’ rigorous imprisonment and fined Rs. 1,000 in the 19-year-old case. Rathore was granted bail immediately after his conviction.

In its appeal before the court, the CBI strongly opposed the excuse of old age advanced by Rathore’s counsel. In the enhancement appeal, the CBI said Rathore did not act on the spur of the moment and his action was “pre-planned.”

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