Gurgaon child sexual assault case: Parents challenge SIT probe in court

5 min readGurgaonUpdated: Jul 11, 2026 07:29 PM IST

The sexual assault case had sparked widespread scrutiny over the police’s handling of the matter, with the then Gurgaon police chief having to file an affidavit in the top court, explaining the delay in lodging an FIR. (Representative Image)

Months after the Supreme Court transferred the probe in the alleged sexual assault of a three-year-old in Gurgaon to a Special Investigation Team (SIT), the father of the child has moved a local court and has claimed lapses in the investigation. Urging the court to reject the chargesheet filed by SIT in May and direct further investigation, the child’s father in his petition filed on July 9 accused the SIT of running a “one-sided, incomplete and unreliable investigation”.

The SIT, as per the petition, “inexplicably exonerated” three key suspects, including the domestic help who was working at the Gurgaon flat where the family lives, despite the toddler repeatedly identifying them. The former domestic help’s brother-in-law was named as the prime accused in the case, and another domestic help, who worked at the upscale apartment complex, is the third suspect in the case.

This is not the first time that the family has approached a court for intervening in the matter. The investigation in the sexual assault case had drawn Supreme Court’s ire earlier this year after the parents of the child had claimed laxity by the local police.

The Indian Express had reported in March that the first investigating officer in the case allegedly delayed filing an FIR in the case by over a month before eventually getting arrested in an unrelated corruption case. On March 24, former Gurugram Police chief Vikas Arora had filed an affidavit in the top court, explaining the delay in lodging an FIR in the matter.

The child’s father has now claimed that the chargesheet filed by the SIT on May 16 is “fundamentally flawed”. It is “highly unlikely”, the petition submitted in the top court underlines, for a child of this age to fabricate such a traumatic incident. The SIT chargesheet itself “neither records that the child was unreliable, tutored or mistaken, nor assigns any reason whatsoever for discarding her repeated and consistent disclosures,” it says.

The Indian Express has reached out to the SIT regarding the claims. A response is awaited.

Objections raised in the petition

On the chargesheet claiming that there was “no direct or indirect evidence” against the two domestic helps involved in the incident, including the one earlier employed by the family, and the third suspect initially arrested, the protest petition argues that the agency ignored evidence and vital admissions. “The SIT did identify a primary male accused based on digital footprints. However, the petition details how this accused, during custodial interrogation on April 15, explicitly disclosed the involvement of [Maid A] in the commission of the offence ,” it states.

The petition claims that the SIT accepted one of the domestic help’s “denial” on face value and “exonerated her… despite overlapping timelines and glaring connections”. Detailing the sequence of events on the day of the event, it said, “The SIT’s own analysis placed this primary accused in the vicinity of the gated society on December 26 between 3:54 pm and 4:22 pm. Simultaneously, CCTV footage confirmed that the child had left the residence with Maid A at 3:22 pm and only returned at 4:58 pm.” Citing the chargesheet, it says, the domestic help “even admitted to losing sight of the child for about 10 minutes during this window while playing hide-and-seek.” Reiterating the claim that one of the domestic help’s brother-in-law allegedly sexually assaulted the child, the father’s petition questions how a stranger could have gained access to the child or synchronised his presence without the facilitation of the person holding exclusive custody of the toddler.

The petition also questions the SIT for over-reliance on a digital gate-management application and call detail records (CDRs) while ignoring basic forensic work. The SIT used “the gate-management app to absolve the suspects, a move the petition calls fundamentally flawed,” it says. The app retains data for a limited period, and the SIT made “no effort to secure or retrieve historical server data,” the petition notes. It states that the SIT itself concluded the primary accused had entered the society multiple times despite those entries never showing up on the app, proving its unreliability.

The plea also circles back to the alleged failures of the initial response by the local police.

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The local police had allegedly failed to immediately secure the crime scene within the housing society, resulting in the loss of crucial forensic evidence, it is argued. Officers also allegedly failed to secure CCTV footage from the society before it was overwritten, or trace the auto-rickshaw the child mentioned, the plea claimed. The father’s petition stressed that the “absence of CCTV footage is not an exculpatory circumstance but the direct consequence of serious investigative lapses”.

The case has been listed for hearing on July 16.

© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd

Abhimanyu Hazarika is a Senior Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Gurgaon. He covers southern Haryana.

Education

- Post-Graduate Diploma in Print Media, Asian College of Journalism (Class of 2020)

- B.A. (Hons) Liberal Arts with a major in Political Science, Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts (Class of 2019)

Professional Experience

Before joining The Indian Express, he worked with Bar & Bench (legal journalism) and Frontline magazine, where he developed experience in court reporting, legal analysis, and long-form investigative features.

Reporting Interests

His work centres on civic accountability, environmental policy, urban infrastructure and culture, crime and law enforcement, and their intersections with politics and governance in and around Gurgaon.

Recent Coverage (2025)

- Crime: Reported on the recovery of 350 kg of explosives and an AK-47 from a rented house in Faridabad, linked to the 2025 Red Fort car explosion case (November 11, 2025).

- Environmental policy: Covered protests outside a Haryana minister’s residence against a Supreme Court order that environmentalists argue could allow mining and real estate development on large parts of the Aravalli hills (December 21, 2025).

- Pollution control measures: Co-authored coverage of the Rekha Gupta government’s enforcement of vehicle restrictions at Delhi-NCR borders (December 21, 2025).

- Road safety and infrastructure: Examined response lapses in the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway hit-and-run case and ongoing investigations into high-speed road crimes in Gurugram.

- Animal welfare policy: Reported on concerns regarding the low budget allocated for stray dog sterilization by the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (November 30, 2025).

- Urban culture: Featured the social media-driven popularity of a new Magnolia Bakery outlet in Gurugram (December 15, 2025).

Contact

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