Lawyer demands 38 celebrities' arrest for revealing rape victim's name
A Delhi-based lawyer has filed a case against several popular names attached to the entertainment industry for revealing the name of the 2019 Hyderabad rape victim. The incident, which came to be known as the Disha rape-murder case (Disha being the name given by the police to conceal her identity), shook the country to the core, sparking outrage. Several celebrities had joined the protest too.
Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn have been named
Angry tweets had come from Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Anupam Kher, Ravi Teja, Rakul Preet Singh, Allu Sirish, Charmme Kaur, and Farhan Akhtar, condemning the incident. But in this milieu, they named the victim, which goes against a Supreme Court order that was passed in 2018. The apex court had placed a complete restriction from making a sexual assault victim's name public.
Was applicable to anything 'even remotely' connected to victim's identity
"No person can print or publish in print, electronic, social media, etc. the name of the victim or even in a remote manner disclose any facts which can lead to the victim being identified," a bench of justices (now retired) Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta had said then. "The bar extends to anything which can even remotely be used to identify the victim."
Apart from complaint, the lawyer also has filed a petition
Taking this into account, Gaurav Gulati, the lawyer, filed a complaint at Delhi's Sabzi Mandi Police Station under IPC Section 228 A against 38 celebrities, including the ones mentioned before. He also has filed a petition in Tis Hazari Court, where he has alleged that these popular names should have exercised caution before naming the gang rape-murder victim because it is against the law.
In 2019, a 26-year-old veterinary doctor was gang-raped, set ablaze
Gulati has also demanded the celebrities be arrested. To recall, four men had tortured, raped, and strangulated Disha, 26, veterinary doctor, before transporting her body to Chatanpally, Shadnagar. They then wrapped her body in a bedsheet, doused it in kerosene, and set it on fire. All the accused were arrested and killed in an alleged encounter at the exact spot where she was murdered.
