CBI Cracks Kotkhai Rape And Murder Case, Arrests Woodcutter
The probe was taken over by the agency on 22 July 2017, on the orders of the Himachal Pradesh High Court.
The CBI, on Wednesday, 25 April, arrested a 25-year-old woodcutter with a criminal past in connection with the rape-and-murder of a teenage schoolgirl in the Kotkhai area of Shimla, after his DNA sample matched the genetic material found on the body of the victim and the crime scene.
The findings of the agency come as a relief to the families of five people arrested earlier by the state police in relation to the case, even as the CBI had failed to prove their involvement in the gruesome rape-and-murder in July 2017, emerging as a rallying point against the then Congress government in Himachal Pradesh.
The investigation, which unfolded like a crime thriller, involved a team of 40 CBI officials who camped in the area around the crime scene for nine months in extreme secrecy, collecting intelligence from local people, digging information on people with criminal records, and following various leads which took them to Kashmir and Uttarakhand as well.
The probe, which was taken over by the agency on 22 July 2017, on the orders of the Himachal Pradesh High Court, was monitored by the top brass of the agency.
How the Agency Cracked the Case?
After ruling out the involvement of the five suspects arrested by the state police using call records analysis, narco-analysis, polygraph tests and corroboration of their alibi, the CBI had started the probe afresh.
The agency started work on multiple fronts – some teams worked to develop rapport with locals trying to get intelligence, while others did combing operation of the forest area in concentric circles, the officials said.
Meanwhile, some teams started collecting a DNA trail of people, history-sheeters and families living in the area to do profiling by experts from the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL) who used advance tests such as percentage match and lineage match.
The agency had collected 250 such samples of people from a wide range of backgrounds. In one case, the agency found that some percentage of a sample matched with the DNA of blood samples found on a liquor bottle at the crime scene and clothes and the body of the victim, the officials said.
During questioning, it surfaced that a relative of the person whose blood sample was taken had worked at a nearby locality when the crime had taken place.
Following that trail, the agency reached the suspect's house in Kangra district, where it found that he had a criminal past and had been on the run since September 2016, after getting bail in an attempted murder case, they said.
Suspect Untraceable After Case Cracked
But the case was far from over as the suspect was untraceable and did not keep contact with his family and remained without any mobile to prevent digital tracking.
The agency shortlisted some of 80 people who had high probability of being contacted by the suspect and started trailing them.
The CBI teams interviewed the people whose phones were used to make these calls, made a track of location from where they were made, and pattern in which he was moving, to come up with a profile of the suspect with the help of experts of the CFSL.
After one such call made around 13 April was intercepted by the agency, the teams were rushed to a farm in Roharu area near Shimla.
The team spotted one labourer in the farm whose profile matched with the one they were trailing.
He was immediately nabbed and brought to Delhi where tests confirmed his involvement in the crime as DNA matched 100 percent with the blood sample collected from the site.
During the questioning, it emerged that the teenage girl was in a school in Mehsu village from where children used to walk for about five kilometers, which took over one-and-a-half hours to their Balsang village located on a hilly terrain.
The villages are sparsely populated separated with a thick Halaila forests which children crossed while returning from their school.
On 4 July, Anil Kumar who was allegedly in hiding and working in a nearby farm, was passing through that area when he spotted the minor girl who was returning from school after completing her sports meet.
He overpowered her and allegedly raped and murdered her, the agency alleged. The Class 10 student had gone missing on 4 July and her naked body was recovered from Haliala forests in Kotkhai on 6 July.
The accused was produced before a court in Shimla on Wednesday and was sent to judicial custody.
In connection with its probe into the case, the CBI also arrested the then Inspector General of Police (IGP) ZH Zaidi, then Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Manoj Joshi and six other policemen for the custodial death of one of the accused arrested earlier by the state police.
Zaidi was heading a Special Investigation Team (SIT) which was initially probing the rape-and-murder case.
HC Dismayed at Leak of CBI Reports
The Himachal Pradesh High Court on Wednesday, 25 April expressed its dismay at the leak of the CBI's status reports on the probe into the rape-and-murder of the teenage schoolgirl, and asked the central agency how contents of these reports were being published in the media.
The observations were made by a division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Sharma after the CBI submitted a fresh status report on the progress of the probe.
On being asked, the CBI told the bench that it was the last report and the chargesheet against the accused arrested in the case would be filed within the prescribed time period of 90 days, by 11 July.
The court, however, did not change its earlier order summoning the Director of the CBI to appear before it on 9 May. The bench asked the CBI Director to file a personal affidavit by 8 May and in case, the court was not satisfied, the Director would have to appear on 9 May as directed earlier.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)