Saujanya rape and murder case: Court finds fault in probe

Hameed Ashraf | NT

Bengaluru: Eleven years after the incident, the Children’s Special Court opined that the investigation was not properly done in the rape and murder case of 17-year-old girl Saujanya.

The court gave its opinion after accused Santhosh Rao was given an acquittal recently. News Trail, on June 17, had reported that Santosh Rao was acquitted based on evidence and reports that suggested that Rao was suffering from Phimosis and no injuries were found on his private parts to suggest his involvement in the crime.

The court said that the samples collected by the doctors after the rape were not complementary to the case. So, suitable action should be taken against erring officials. This case was registered in October 2012 and Beltangady police investigated the matter. Later, the case was handed over to the Special Crime department of the CBI Chennai in 2013. It submitted its report in 2016.

In the order of June 2016, Justice CB Santhosh noticed that there were no suitable witnesses or evidence to connect the accused Santhosh to the crime. The justice pronounced that the prosecution had failed to prove the accusations and asked the district legal services authority to provide compensation to the parents of the deceased Saujanya.

The justice said, “Accused Santhosh is not connected to the crime at all. He is falsely accused. In the DNA report also there is no positive evidence against the accused. Semen marks or the hair of the victim girl were not found on the cloth of the accused. The mud that was found on the confiscated items and vaginal swab gave the same results. But they were not found on the clothes of the accused," he said.

The justice further said, "The surprising fact is that no evidence was recovered from the spot where the crime took place. If the rape had occurred at the said place, what prevented the investigating officers to call a team of experts to the spot to find footprints or hair of the people who were actually involved in the crime? Prosecution could not verify the last seen ideology and there was no evidence that the victim girl was dragged into the bushes and raped," he said.

The judge also said that when there were no clues from the investigating agency about the accused and the vaginal swab report of experts was the best evidence to connect the criminals with the crime.

However, forensic experts did not collect the vaginal swab properly. Vaginal swabs should be packed after drying. But the doctor had not done so. That is why there were no positive results in the DNA test as fungus developed in the evidence that was collected.