A social organisation on Wednesday filed a petition in the Orissa high court requesting the Odisha government be directed to conduct polygraph tests of special investigation team (SIT) chief Arun Bothra and doctors who conducted the post-mortem of the 5-year-old girl, allegedly killed by a teenager in July this year.
On Tuesday, SIT chief Arun Bothra had claimed that an 18-year-old youth of Nayagarh district had strangulated the 5-year-old after failing to sexually assault her. Bothra claimed that the youth even tried to have sex with the body.
In his petition, Surendra Panigrahi of Bharatiya Bikash Parishad, prayed for an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the murder case and sought lie-detection tests on the doctors, who initially found no signs of rape on the minor girl during post-mortem. The SIT later claimed that the girl was sexually assaulted and semen stains were found on the frock of the deceased girl.
“SIT chief Arun Bothra should undergo polygraph test in order to ascertain whether some evidence is being concealed or there are loopholes in his version. Doctors should also undergo polygraph tests so that it is known if proper examinations have been carried out during the post-mortem,” Panigrahi said in his plea.
The petition says Bothra has not said why the body of the minor girl was not found within 10 days after she went missing even as local police personnel and dog squad had been pressed into service.
Opposition BJP also raised serious questions on the probe by the SIT and accused Bothra of shielding BJD minister Arun Sahoo by arresting the youth as a scapegoat.
“When home minister Dibya Shankar Mishra had admitted in the Assembly that there was no evidence of the minor girl being raped, Arun Bothra’s statements contradicting Mishra’s admittance made us doubt SIT’s integrity. We do not know whom to believe now. The government and the SIT’s statements do not match, making us believe that the government, police and now Arun Bothra, all are trying to shield minister Sahoo, who has been named many times by the family of the minor girl as an accomplice in the case,” said Golak Mohapatra, BJP spokesman.
