Mumbai: DIG Paraskar looked upon the model who eventually accused him of rape as his sister, his lawyer Rizwan Merchant told the court hearing his anticipatory bail application.
Not only sister, Paraskar also called her a daughter in one of his emails to her on June 27, 2014. “I must confess again … I care for you as a friend, sister, daughter,’’ Paraskar wrote to her.
“The victim did not react to that remark. The conduct of the lady shows that there was a healthy relationship between them,” Merchant contended.
In some e-mails, the victim continued to acknowledge Paraskar as a friend, Merchant said.
Referring to the woman’s contention that she filed the first information report late because she was undergoing emotional trauma and depression, Merchant said her twitter account did not reflect such a frame of mind.
The victim even tweeted a picture of herself on December 1 last year, “the day when she said Paraskar allegedly molested her”, he said, adding that on December 7 too — when according to her Paraskar raped her she tweeted about something, then why she did not tweet about the alleged rape.
The hearing has been adjourned to Thursday, when the victim’s lawyer Chitra Salunke will present her argument.
Merchant concluded his arguments saying that there was no need to arrest Paraskar as there are other means to gather evidence and that he has been and will be cooperative in the investigation.
The crime branch probing the case has collected all the SMSes and emails from the complainant in the case, including both incoming and outgoing correspondence. Merchant said that since the police have this material already they did not need his custody. He cited the Madhur Bhandakar and Preeti Jain rape case of 2005, where the Bollywood director was also granted anticipatory bail by the Sessions court, to support his contention.
The case is being heard by Vrushali Joshi, who is the designated judge to hear cases pertaining to crimes against women.
Paraskar had destroyed two of his cell phones before the FIR was filed as one was broken and the other was slow, Merchant explained. “But even if one deletes the information from a phone, it can be retrieved through forensic means. Since Paraskar had sensitive information in his phones such as confidential short reports, bank details and details of his informants, he destroyed them instead of selling them,” Merchant explained.
Merchant ended his arguments by stating that Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013, which was supposed to empower women, is being misused by them to file rape charges against men with whom they have a grudge. He said that the FIR filed by the model is nothing but a fabricated product of vengeance against Paraskar because of three reasons: the alleged improper investigation of the Escort Services case in January, Assistant Police Inspector Manisha Nalawde checking her and her sister’s call detail records and rivalry with model Poonam Pandey. Input PTI
