Guwahati, May 9: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that he was constantly monitoring the case of child abuse in connection with which a city-based doctor couple has been arrested and currently in police custody.
Responding to a query on the case, the chief minister on Monday said, “I am monitoring the case on a day-to-day basis. City police have, in the meantime, booked the accused under various sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.”
Sarma further said he would request the Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court for a special court to expedite the trial of the child abuse case.
“I will write to the honourable Chief Justice, Gauhati High Court requesting him for a special court to expedite the trial of the case. As it is, I have directed the police to submit a charge-sheet in the case within a month to 45 days. We will try to ensure that the case is concluded within six months,” the chief minister said.
Notably, the city police is currently interrogating the doctor couple in separate police stations here.
The couple is accused of having physically abused an “adopted” minor girl who they claim to have been given by someone in 2019, along with another minor boy.
Assam DGP Gyanendra Pratap Singh had, in a media conference earlier in the day, said that two medical reports by a team of expert that were provided to the city police had confirmed (following conduct of medical examination on both the minors) that the children were subjected to “penetrative sexual assault.”
“Two cases have been registered so far. The developments are being monitored at the highest level of the government. We have directed the commissioner of police, Guwahati, to ensure that the investigation is foolproof. Nobody should be allowed to go scot free. The charge-sheet will have to be submitted within a stipulated time on the basis of forensic, circumstantial and corroborative evidence,” the DGP said.
While the doctor was arrested a few days earlier, his wife, who is also a medical practitioner, was absconding for a while, was eventually arrested from a house on a hilltop in a secluded area near a resort in the Khanapara here by a city police team late Saturday night.
Both the accused are in police custody for five days after they were produced in the chief judicial magistrate’s court here.