Teenage rape victim turns suicidal, abusive

PANAJI - A girl who was allegedly raped by a Goa cabinet minister’s son in 2008 when she was 14 has since slashed her wrists, attacked her mother with a knife and has needed constant psychiatric care and counselling, the mother has told a court here.

The statement to the Goa children’s court by the mother of the German teenage victim paints an agonizing picture of the trauma suffered by the minor, who nevertheless continues to have a soft corner for her alleged sexual assailant Rohit Monserrate (then 21), son of powerful Goa Education Minister Atanasio Monserrate.

A copy of the statement is with IANS.

The victim was admitted to the state-run Institute for Psychiatry and Human Behaviour (IPHB) after her first few ‘meetings’ with the accused Rohit Monserrate in 2008. The mother has said that the girl, after showing initial signs of recovery, had then “cut her wrist veins on several occasions”.

The mother has also said that Rohit Monserrate had sent her minor daughter several lewd and vulgar text messages on her mobile phone.

“I had an opportunity to read the messages received on the mobile phone of my daughter and some of the messages were regarding sex and were obscene and in one message, it was written, ‘I want you to smoke and drink a lot, but I don’t want you to become pregnant’,” the victim’s mother told the court, while being cross examined by senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, who is defending Rohit.

The mother also spelled out the ordeal she had to undergo, when she decided to file a rape complaint against Rohit.

“On October 2, 2008, I filed a complaint at Calangute police station and since the police inspector was not available, the concerned officer advised me to submit the copy of it to the women police station, Panaji. Since there was no response, I lodged another written complaint dated 14/10/08,” she said.

The complaint was subsequently registered after media reports pointed out the reluctance of the state police to file a case against the high profile state education minister’s son.

The mother admitted: “It is true that she (the daughter) was accusing me of destroying her friendship with the accused also,” adding that her daughter said this after she was prevented from going out once the complaint was registered.

“It is true that one day I prevented my daughter from going out so that she could not remain out till late; she assaulted me with a knife… It is also true that the next day my daughter broke many things from our house in anger.”

The mother said that the victim also described their lawyer at the time, Aires Rodrigues, as “poison”.

The German minor’s rape case in October 2008 had virtually divided the state cabinet, with a group of ministers even threatening Chief Minister Digambar Kamat with a coup if the police went ahead with their investigations in the case.

German consular officials had to intervene and lobby with the state government to force the police to probe the rape case. The police were also censured by the Panaji bench of the Bombay High Court for being overtly supportive of Rohit during their probe.