A city magistrate court has directed the Vakola police station to further investigate a complaint lodged in 2013 by Marathi film writer Swapna Patker for assault in which the police had filed a closure report.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate SB Bhajiale said in his order that the complainant herself provided names of suspicious persons but the investigating officer has never examined them. The police had filed an ‘A’ summary report in the case as they could not find the unknown culprits.
Patker, in her protest petition against the closure report, has said that the police had not investigated her husband, with whom she had strained relations or Sanjay Raut, ‘a political person’, she has suspicions on. She said that she had informed the police that Raut was stalking, following her and removed the CDR of her phone and was thus aware of her location. She stated that she had informed the police that the politician was giving perks to her husband to harass her, but the police never probed them both.
The incident relates to June 29, 2013, when Patker was returning from work in her Honda car. She was in Santacruz west when six to seven unknown men attacked her vehicle and broke its glass with iron rods. She sustained injury to her eyes in the attack.
Her advocate Chintan Bhuva had argued that there were lacunae in the probe and no CCTV footage was collected by which the accused could be apprehended easily.
The magistrate said in his order that the investigating officer miserably failed to consider that prior to the incident also she was assaulted in a similar manner. The court also pointed out that he had not examined the CCTV footage though the incident had happened in the locality.
“It is well settled that the FIR is not an encyclopedia and there are different factors which might compel omissions in FIR,” it said, adding that no attempt was made by the officer to record her supplementary statements and verify the truthfulness of the complaint. It said that there is scope for further investigation in the circumstances.
Patker had approached the Bombay High Court too regarding these and other complaints in which the police had filed closure reports. She had sought that Raut be arrested for stalking and harassing her. The HC while dismissing her petition, had directed the magistrate court to expeditiously decide the summary report filed by the police in this case.
