Hoshiarpur DC orders action against printing press owner over rape convict's photo on hoarding

The Hoshiarpur deputy commissioner has ordered action against a printing press owner for putting the picture of a 2012 Delhi gang rape convict on a hoarding that sought to encourage people to vote.

Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer Isha Kalia Wednesday said she had handed over the investigation to Additional Deputy Commissioner Harpreet Singh Sudan after the matter was brought to her notice.

The Punjab State Election Commission too has recommended police action against the printing press owner.

It has come to light that the printing press and the officers concerned of the Election Department did not check whose photo was being printed on the flex hoarding.

The DC said she has recommended to the Chief Electoral Officer of Punjab that departmental action be initiated against the erring officials who failed to notice the serious lapse.

She further said that in the future, no poster or banner would be printed without approval from a senior official.

On Monday, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) had issued a notice to the Election Commission over the hoarding. The Election Commission had then sought a report from the chief electoral officer of Punjab.

On December 16, 2012, six men assaulted and raped a 23-year-old paramedic student in a moving bus in Delhi and a fortnight later, she succumbed in a Singapore hospital.

The victim's mother had apprised DCW chief Swati Maliwal of the matter, saying a picture was being circulated on social media wherein the photograph of Mukesh Singh, a convict in the rape case, was displayed on official hoardings in Punjab.

Terming it an attack "most brutal, barbaric and diabolical", the Supreme Court in 2017, upheld the death sentence for four men convicted of the savage rape and murder of the young woman who came to be known by an outraged nation as "Nirbhaya", the fearless.

One of the accused in the case, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in the Tihar Jail here, while a minor, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board. He was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.