The CBI has said that a Himachal police Special Investigation Team (SIT) cooked up false evidence to implicate a Nepalese man and four others, in the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl at Kotkhai in July.
According to Hindustan Times, it also accused the SIT, headed by inspector general of police (IG) Zahur Zaidi, of a covering up the death of the accused Nepalese man, Suraj Singh, in police custody on 18 July.
The CBI Chargesheet, filed in front of the Shimla District court on 25 November, reads:
After the formation of the SIT, inspector general (IG) Zahur Zaidi, the then Shimla superintendent of police (SP) DW Negi, Theog deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Manoj Joshi and other accused police officers entered into a criminal conspiracy to falsely implicate Suraj Singh and others in the Kotkhai rape and murder case.
The chargesheet mentions that the SIT had arrested Singh and four others a week after the victim’s, who the police were calling ‘Gudiya’, body was found. It also stated that Singh seems to have been ‘tortured’ to extract a confession and another admitted his involvement at gunpoint, reports Hindustan Times.
The CBI’s conclusion seems to have taken place after they took over the probe following a Himachal Pradesh high court order, and re-examined Singh’s body in the presence of experts from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, on 25 July. The results suggested that the injuries sustained on Singh’s body took place in time intervals ranging between two days to two hours prior to his death.
The injuries produced on Suraj’s body were sustained by a blunt hard cylindrical object such as a lathi.The chargesheet added, as reported by Hindustan Times
Hindustan Times also said that the CBI concluded that the SIT had “made false entries in the police records and also submitted false and fabricated reports” to the state police chief, by stating that it was Rajinder, another man they had arrested in the case, who had killed Singh in the lock up at Kotkhai police station.
The 16-year old girl had been raped and murdered on her way home from school in July. The SIT had soon after arrested Singh and four other men for the crime, despite the lack of evidence implicating them.
The CBI has so far arrested nine police officers, including Zaidi, Negi and Joshi, in the case.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)