The three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the gang rape and subsequent suicide of a Dalit minor girl, on Monday submitted its interim probe report to the Odisha high court. The SIT was constituted by the high court.
Victim’s lawyer Srijee Vausar said the SIT has been granted a week’s time to submit the final report by December 23.
Last month, in her petition, the victims’ mother had sought a CBI probe into the gang rape and suicide of the girl. The high court ordered an SIT investigation.
The minor Dalit girl in Koraput district was allegedly gang raped by troopers of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) in October 2017 in a forest, following which she committed suicide in January 2018. The girl, who was a class 9 student in a local school, had alleged in her complaint that she had gone to the market in Kunduli area of Koraput district to get her biometrics recorded for her Aadhar card and was returning to her village when four jawans accosted her and sexually assaulted her in a jungle nearby.
In August this year, a judicial probe undertaken by Koraput district and sessions judge into the incident said there was no medical evidence of the girl being raped and wondered why a minor girl, putting her modesty at stake, made false accusations and sexual assault story. The judicial probe report said that “making of false implication by the girl cannot be ruled out because of personal transgression and avoidance of further embarrassment best known to her”.
While recommending a probe into the circumstance that led the girl to commit suicide, the report said its progress should not be disclosed to media before its completion. It also said the identity of the victim should be kept hidden and a statue of the girl erected in the village be removed.
