An e-rickshaw driver who abducted & raped a 7-year-old girl in Shravasti district of UP has been arrested after an encounter with police. Alauddin Khan aka Chotkau had lured the minor from in front of her house on 9 May in Chichadi village of Ikauna tehsil, while a pre-wedding ritual ‘Tilak Samaroh’ was going on. He took her in his e-rickshaw and raped her at a secluded spot on the Bahraich-Bhinga road.
On 12 May, police received inputs that Alauddin is looking to flee to Nepal. His e-rickshaw was intercepted near the Andharpurwa bridge. An encounter ensued after he opened fired on the police from a country revolver, and he was arrested after being shot in both legs in retaliatory police fire. A case has been registered against him under the provisions of the POCSO Act and the Arms Act.
It later emerged that this man is a serial predator, who had raped and murdered a 6-year-old girl, Uma Devi d/o Chhedam Lal, in Semghara village of the same Ikauna tehsil of Shravasti district on 8 March, 2012, and also targeted other minors. Alauddin had lured Uma with the promise of showing her a song & dance performance on the occasion of Holi, but took her to a sugarcane field, and raped & murdered her. Back then, he was arrested based on eyewitness testimony. He was convicted of the crime by trial court in March 2014 and sentenced to death. The same sentence was upheld by Allahabad High Court in April 2016, but he was acquitted by Supreme Court in 2022.
Acquittal by SC
When Alauddin’s conviction for the rape & murder of 6-year-old Uma came to the notice of retired Madras High Court judge S Nagamuthu, he decided to file an appeal in Supreme Court believing there were ‘contradictions’ in the prosecution case such as ‘unreliability’ of three witnesses – the people who had seen Alauddin take the girl away, enter the sugarcane field with her, and then seen him exiting; delay in sending FIR to the jurisdictional court etc.
Based on Nagamuthu’s arguments, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court – Justices V. Ramasubramanian, A.S. Bopanna, S. Abdul Nazeer – acquitted Alauddin and set him free on 21 Sept, 2022.
“Court cannot make someone a victim of injustice, to compensate for the injustice to the victim of a crime,” the SC bench said in its 47-page verdict that dramatically slammed the police, prosecution and the lower courts. The bench said the rape and murder of the six-year-old girl was undoubtedly “ghastly” but the prosecution had gone great injustice to the appellant by fixing culpability on him “without any shred of evidence which will stand scrutiny”. The court concluded the statements of the witnesses were “untrustworthy”.
The top court also claimed there was an unjustifiable delay on part of trial judge in providing Alauddin, allegedly a very poor man, with the services of a lawyer to assist the court as amicus curiae. Alauddin told the top court that he was ‘innocent’ and was ‘framed’ for the murder on March 8, 2012, by the village head’s husband, Zalim Khan, who was his relative and was trying to usurp his mother’s property.
“When we analyze the evidence with such a sense of responsibility, we are not convinced that the guilt of the appellant stood established beyond a reasonable doubt,” the SC bench said, ordering Alauddin aka Chotkau to be immediately released.
Astonishingly, in most mainstream media coverage of this acquittal in 2022 such as in this Hindustan Times report (archived here), the accused was only referred by his nickname ‘Chotkau’, and his official name Alauddin Khan was suppressed.
Now painted as a victim of the justice system, Alauddin Khan’s release from Varanasi Central Jail on 7 Oct, 2022 was covered in depth by far-left propaganda news portal Newsclick, which bemoaned how ‘Chotkau has wasted over ten precious years of his life’ and was now in need of financial support, quoting the accused who asked ‘Can the Supreme Court also order compensation?’. Incidentally, Alauddin Khan underwent heart surgery at the department of the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University (IMS-BHU), while in jail.
It is noteworthy that in October 2023, Newsclick founder Prabir Purkayastha was arrested for receiving money for pro-China propaganda and was charged under UAPA. He was denied bail by a lower court and Delhi HC, but was granted bail by SC in May 2024 which said ‘police must furnish grounds of arrest in writing & not just convey them orally’. SC has also given relief to Newsclick in a tax case, where the portal is being represented by Kapil Sibal.
Conclusion
Clearly, something is badly broken in our criminal justice system and hard questions must be asked. Superintendent of Police Ghanshyam Chaurasia told media that Alauddin is a repeat offender. Apart from the rape and murder of Uma, he had also tried to rape a 10-year-old girl, and after coming out of jail, had threatened the girl’s mother. It is being said that other crimes of sexual harassment and intimidation were also committed by him.
Was SC seized of Alauddin’s background, including the rape attempt on a 10-year-old minor, when it decided to acquit him for the rape & murder of Uma? Whatever the procedural and other discrepancies that the SC mentioned in their judgement while freeing Alauddin, why didn’t they take cognizance of the man’s background and rely on expert psychological opinion on the likelihood of him committing similar crimes if allowed to walk free?
Was SC more empathetic to the defence’s case as it was being represented by a retired HC judge S Nagamuthu? With close to a lakh cases pending before SC, including many important Constitutional & legal matters, what is the criteria for deciding how appeals are heard?
In 2022, an SC bench comprising Justices UU Lalit, S. Ravindra Bhat and Bela M. Trivedi commuted the death sentence of Mohammed Firoz, convicted for raping and murdering a 4-year-old Hindu girl in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, reducing his sentence to just 20 years while quoting the lines of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde “Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.”
Cases of offenders repeating crimes after being released from jail are now rampant as this report states – “In many cases of rape and sexual abuse, the accused secure bail and continue with their criminal activities which highlights serious loopholes in the judicial system. In February 2025, a 22-year-old man named Asif alias Chhote Babu kidnapped a 17-year-old girl he was accused of raping in October 2023. The accused was out on bail when he kidnapped the girl again on 5th February from Uttar Pradesh’s Bhadohi. The accused booked under the POCSO Act was earlier arrested and jailed for 8 months before he secured bail. After coming out of jail, he kidnapped the girl, to continue the very crime he was jailed for.”
The bleeding-heart liberal approach of our judiciary, and the two-tier justice system wherein those are well-networked with elites in the legal fraternity get privileged access to top courts, is endangering the lives of ordinary children. It is breaking the social contract between the Indian Republic and its citizens.
