Tappal, Aligarh: For a 48-year-old mother in Aligarh’s Tappal town, where two-year-old Twinkle Sharma was murdered, the anger is tempered by relief.
Relief that Aslam, the prime accused in the murder of Twinkle Sharma, is back in jail.
For two years before Sharma’s murder, the 48-year-old’s family was at the receiving end of what she describes as Aslam’s “sexual predatory instincts”.
On 16 March 2017, Aslam had allegedly jumped onto her terrace and groped her 15-year-old daughter, after breaking into the bathroom while she was taking a bath. Although he was arrested soon after and booked under Protection of Child Against Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act, Aslam was released on bail.
She says that she had since been living in fear for the security of her daughters.
“I married off my daughter just to ensure that she leaves Tappal,” she says. “Aslam is a predator. He goes around looking for women he can pounce on. I am glad he is back in jail and I hope he does not come out after this. He deserves to be hanged, that too in public.”
The woman says that such is the fear of Aslam that women in the town change their daily routine when he is around. “The girls do not step out of the house to go to the jungle or fill water,” she says. “He is such a lecherous man and everyone is aware of it. No woman also steps out of the house at night without their husbands, when he is around.”
Other women in the town have similar complaints. A 32-year-old woman who did not want to be named alleged that Aslam smoked marijuana and lurked around drunk.
“He is a drug addict, an alcoholic. Once he charged at me while I was going to fill buckets of water. I slipped, fell and broke my ankle and he was just laughing hysterically,” she said. “People came to my help and shooed him away.”
Serial offender out on bail
Police records bear out the women’s complaints. Records at the Tappal police station show that Aslam has four criminal cases registered against him, two of which are under the POCSO Act.
Of these cases, one is the rape of his own nine-year-old daughter, one is the molestation case involving the 15-year-old, one is under the Goonda Act and another is of kidnapping a teenager.
Despite this laundry list of crimes, however, Aslam has so far always managed to get bail.
A UP police officer, who has closely watched Aslam’s conduct, told ThePrint that he always manages bail somehow.
“We have heard that he bribes many people in the system to get bail,” the police officer alleged. “After all, this is how it works in UP. Each time his father comes and secures bail for him.”
Legal expert, advocate Soutik Banerjee, explained that bail can be granted even in a POCSO case by the court, depending on the grounds presented for seeking bail.
“In a non-bailable offence like this one registered under the POCSO Act, it is the court’s decision whether or not to grant bail. However, one needs to look at the grounds on which it was granted,” Banerjee said. “If the accused has such a criminal history and is a habitual offender, the court usually does not grant bail,” he added.
“In a bailable offence, bail can be granted from the police station itself and the court does not get involved,” he added.
Also read: ‘Youths with covered faces’ lay siege to Aligarh village as Twinkle murder takes communal turn
‘Raped his own daughter’
On 8 February 2014, Aslam allegedly dragged his nine-year-old daughter to a field just metres away from his house and raped her.
The complaint in the matter was filed by Aslam’s father, who found out about the incident after the nine-year-old started experiencing severe pain in her abdomen and then confided in him.
“She is Aslam’s real daughter. He took the nine-year-old girl to the field on the pretext of taking her for an evening walk and then raped her,” a UP police officer told ThePrint. “The girl’s grandfather later gave a complaint in the case and he was arrested,” the officer added.
“She was thrashed mercilessly when she tried to resist. At that time she was so young that she did not even realise that she was being sexually assaulted by her own father,” said the officer who didn’t wish to be named. “After the complaint, the girl’s medical was conducted, which proved rape and Aslam was arrested.”
The case was charge-sheeted under sections of rape and POCSO Act and Aslam remained in jail for a year. He was released on bail in 2015.
The trial in the case is still on.
A ‘ganda aadmi‘ booked under Goonda Act
The local residents of Tappal refer to Aslam as the ‘ganda aadmi‘ and he has been boycotted entirely in the village. The UP police suo motu registered a case under the Goonda Act against him in 2015 after a number of complaints against Aslam’s conduct.
A case under the Goonda Act is registered against a “habitual criminal”, or a person who is desperate and dangerous to the community, or a person who has been convicted for an offence punishable under the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act, 1956, or has been habitually passing indecent remarks or teasing women or girls.
“This case was filed against him to make sure that he remains inside the jail and women outside feel safer,” a second police officer said. “He is a pervert, a paedophile, who habitually sexually harasses girls. This is the reason why a case of Goonda Act was registered against him and he was arrested.”
Aslam, a resident of Tappal, stayed in his house with his wife, a daughter and son, and his parents. However, after he was accused of raping his own daughter, his wife sent the girl to live with her father, while she herself stayed on.
Also read: Aligarh two-year-old was beaten up for 8 hours before she died
Case of kidnapping in Delhi’s Gokulpuri
The UP police said that a case of abduction of a teenager was registered against Aslam in Delhi’s Gokulpuri police station but the police in the capital denied it.
The UP police do not have either the FIR number or any other detail of the case.
“We do not have the case details, but our records mention that Aslam has a case of kidnapping registered against him in Delhi’s Gokulpuri,” a third UP officer said.
A Delhi police officer, who didn’t wish to be named, however, said, “There is no such case in the name of this accused in Gokulpuri. We got our records checked; in fact, there was no communication to us by the UP police to share details of any such case.”