Rajasthan Police on Saturday arrested a 50-year-old school principal from Deoria in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly altering the birth records of a 14-year-old rape victim. The arrested accused is named Vijendra Kumar Mal. It is alleged that the principal did this to help the rape accused get bail. He falsely claimed that the girl was not a minor, thereby weakening the POCSO case.
DCP Amit Kumar said that the girl had lodged a report at the Murlipura police station in Jaipur last month that her father and aunt had sold her to a man named Sandeep from Haryana for Rs 2 lakh.
According to a report in The Times of India, the victim girl alleged that Sandeep raped her. The police later filed an FIR in the case under the POCSO Act and arrested the girl’s father, aunt and Sandeep. All the accused are currently in judicial custody.
To get legal benefits based on the victim’s age, the accused’s family members submitted a false birth record issued from the school where the minor was enrolled. The altered documents falsely claimed that the girl was born in 2003, making her 21 years old and an adult.
Investigating the case, police found that principal Vijendra Kumar Mal had changed the year of birth from 2010 to 2003 in connivance with the rape victim’s family, who were trying to save her jailed father and aunt. As a result, police filed a second FIR and arrested the principal.
