After a lower court on Monday absolved the key accused of the 2011-12 gruesome rape and murder of a 19-year-old girl of Pipili, the Crime Branch (CB) police that were investigating into the case have decided to move the Orissa High Court challenging the Bhubaneswar-based First Additional Sessions Court verdict.
“The lower court has not taken the clinching circumstantial evidences in the case into consideration while deciding the case,” said Crime Branch counsel Kamadev Pradhan on Tuesday, adding that the forensic reports and the physical evidences clearly established the motive behind the murder of the girl, who was also raped.
Brothers Prashant Pradhan and Sukant Pradhan of Pipili had been arrested in this connection and the lower court acquitted them observing that the prosecution could not produce any solid evidence against the accused. The trial court also said the circumstantial evidence and the forensic reports exhibited in the case did not match.
Notably, after the girl was rescued in an unconscious state from a paddy field on November 28, 2011, the girl’s father had reported the matter to the local police who initially investigated the case after registering it. But after the incident triggered massive public outcry following allegations that the local BJD MLA Pradeep Maharathy was sheltering the accused, the State Government handed over the case to the Crime Branch and Maharathy was asked to resign from his the then Minister’s post.
In the meantime, the rape victim slipped into a comatose state while undergoing treatment at the SCB Medical College Hospital here and, finally, she died on June 21, 2012 after battling for life for nearly seven months.