Badaun case: Special court accepts key probe findings of CBI

A special court on Wednesday accepted the key findings in the closure report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged May 2014 rape and murder case of two cousin minor sisters, whose bodies were found hanging from a tree in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh.

A special court on Wednesday accepted the key findings in the closure report filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged May 2014 rape and murder case of two cousin minor sisters, whose bodies were found hanging from a tree in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh.

The court accepted the CBI’s case findings according to which two accused policemen had not committed any offence. (Burhaan Kinu / HT File Photo)

The court accepted the CBI’s findings that the duo had committed ‘suicide’ owing to the ‘fear of social stigma’ and not been murdered or raped as alleged by the local police earlier.

The CBI on Friday received the official copy of the 25-page order of the court, which had conducted hearings in the case including the ‘protest petitions’ of the parents of the deceased for 10 months after the CBI submitted its closure report last December. “The court has accepted the facts as brought out in investigation of CBI, in toto, and observed that there was no rape or murder of the two girls and they had in fact committed suicide voluntarily… due to fear of social stigma as the whole village would have known of one of their relationship with Pappu Yadav,” said a senior CBI official.

The official said, “The girls, aged 14 and 12, had committed suicide by hanging themselves by using their own ‘dupatta’. The court agreed that the earlier FIR filed by the local police was false and baseless.”

The court ‘accepted’ the CBI’s case findings according to which four of the five accused including two local policemen, who were earlier charged for alleged rape and murder by the local police before the agency took over the case, had “not committed any offence” as per a copy of the order accessed by HT.

The court, however, charged the fifth accused, Pappu Yadav, for offences connected to outraging of the modesty of a minor and took ‘cognisance’ of his role brought out in the CBI’s investigation in this regard.