The woes of the Dalit girl who was allegedly raped 14 times by six of her teachers in Patan’s Primary Teachers’ Certificate College (PTC) are far from over. A fast-track court in Patan — the home constituency of state Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel — is scheduled to decide on Monday whether all the accused can be tried together or are they to be tried under separate chargesheets. This, after the victim had contemplated suicide, walked out of her father’s custody, and is under the care of an NGO.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi had announced a compensation of Rs one lakh for the Dalit girl. However, investigations pertaining to her case started only after Governor Nawal Kishore Sharma admonished the police for the delays in the probe.

Five of the PTC teachers — Manish Parmar, Ashwin Parmar, Mahendra Prajapati, Atul Patel, and Suresh Patel — have been charged with rape and unlawful compulsory labour. Another teacher, Kiran Patel, who is physically challenged, has been charged with committing ‘unnatural’ offences.

Of the accused, Atul Patel is said to be close to Anandiben Patel. He was part of her election campaign team in 2002. Another accused, Manish Parmar, is related to state Education Minister Ramanlal Vora.

On Thursday, the defence lawyer had contended that since the alleged offences were committed at different places at different times, the trial of all the cases cannot be clubbed together and need to be tried separately.

The defence lawyer had argued that since two of the accused teachers were from the Dalit community, the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was not applicable in their case.

... contd.