Punjab & Haryana High Court: Asks Police to Clarify LPU Rape Allegations

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday directed the Punjab Police to inform it whether any incident of rape took place at Lovely Professional University (LPU) before massive violence and arson broke out on the campus [Ravi Raj v Union of India & Ors]A bench of Chief Justice of Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor passed the order on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the violence that broke out at LPU after rumours spread about the alleged sexual assault of a female student on campus. "In the facts of the case, we call upon the State of Punjab to file a status report to specify whether any incident has occurred as was reported on Reddit, social media platform on September 26th. Whether such an incident took place or not will be clarified," the Court ordered.It added that the police should inform the Court about the steps taken to ascertain whether the incident had actually taken place on campus. The Court also said that if no such incident happened, the police would inform it about the action taken to ensure takedown of the Reddit post that allegedly led to the spread of rumours.Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit KapoorLPU students resorted to massive violence on Sunday after reports of alleged rape of a female student on university campus. While the police have registered a criminal case to probe the allegations, they are yet to conclusively establish that any such inc