The day Odisha unit of BJP announced a padyatra in all the 147 assembly constituencies of the state to demand justice for the family of the 5-year-old girl who was brutally murdered in July this year, a special investigation team (SIT) investigating into the incident told the Orissa high court that the minor could have been sexually assaulted before being murdered.
The SIT headed by IG-ranked cop Arun Bothra which submitted its first report in a sealed envelope before the Orissa HC found that the five-year-old girl was sexually assaulted before being murdered.
“The investigation revealed that the minor was stripped before she was murdered. That she has been raped before being killed was confirmed from the samples collected from her clothes,” the SIT report said.
The minor girl’s decomposed skeletal remains were found from the backyard of her house on July 23, nine days after she had gone missing. SIT officials said the frock of the minor victim bore semen stain and the undergarment was missing. The SIT during its probe recorded statements of many witnesses and collected blood samples of at least 34 villagers.
The samples of the semen have been sent for DNA testing. The identity of the accused is yet to be ascertained, but official sources said the person could be a person from the girl’s village.
{{/usCountry}}The samples of the semen have been sent for DNA testing. The identity of the accused is yet to be ascertained, but official sources said the person could be a person from the girl’s village.
{{/usCountry}}Initially, the local police were investigating the case which was later taken by the crime branch and later by the SIT on November 29.
The incident triggered a political storm in the state after the girl’s parents attempted immolation in front of the state Assembly last month blaming higher education minister Arun Sahoo of shielding the prime suspect in the case. While alleging that their daughter may have been a victim of an organ donation racket, the parents also blamed the police for harassing them instead of going after the culprits.
Since then, opposition BJP has made it a political issue with the party now planning to take out a padayatra from Lingaraj Temple in Bhubaneswar to the minor victim’s village in Nayagarh district, demanding justice for the girl.
Last week, the state government had suspended the woman inspector of the local police station for her unprofessional approach in investigation of the case and transferred her supervisory officer over similar charges. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) too had found irregularities in the probe carried out by the local police.
State BJP unit president Samir Mohanty said padayatras would be held across 147 assembly constituencies in the state demanding justice for the girl’s family.
“The National Crime Records Bureau data suggests that the recovery rate of missing children in Odisha was 27.1% in 2019, the lowest in the country. The NCRB data in the last two years (2017-19) mentioned 5,503 children were missing. So many children vanishing from their homes have disturbed every common citizen of the state. BJP will fight to provide justice to all these families,” Mohanty said.