More than a week after the gruesome gang rape and murder of a minor girl at Kotkhai in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh police on Thursday claimed to have cracked the case with arrest of 6 accused.
Director General of Police, Himachal Pradesh Police Somesh Goel claimed in a press conference that 6 people have been arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by IG southern range, Zahoor Zaidi who investigated around 84 people for 51 hours to unearth the mystery of the rape and murder of the 16 year old school girl.
Revealing the details of the crime, Goel said that the arrested six persons include Ashish Chauhan alias Ashu (29 yrs), a resident of village Sharaal and Rajinder Singh (32) of Village Halaala in Kotkhai Tehsil. The other four arrested include Subhash Singh Bisht (38) and Deepak alias Deepu, they both belong to Paudi Garhwal, in Uttrakhand and Surat Singh (42) and lokpal (19) who hail from Nepal.
Zaidi said five persons have been found involved in the in gang rape and murder in the investigation till now and the sixth was yet to be interrogated. He said the five have made their confessional statements and strong evidences have been recovered against these five in the matter.
Giving details of the investigation proceeds, Zaidi said that the major leads in the case were received from the class mates of the victim, who had taken lift in a Mahindra Pick-up van on the day of her kidnapping. The Mahindra Pick-up driver is now one of the accused in the case.
Zaidi said that the arrest of the driver was a major breakthrough in the case and on his statements the involvement of six people in the crime had been found.
DGP Goel said that it was not a case of organised crime and the investigations have found that the crime was perpetrated in an intoxicated state as the accused got an opportunity. He said that the police have found forensic, scientific, circumstantial and other incriminating evidences about the crime and entire mystery had been unearthed.
He said that DNA samples, finger prints, call details of accused and their statements under section 84 have been procured and FIR was filed under section 302,376 and section 4 of POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses) Act under police station Kotkhai.
Expressing concern over hassles faced by the police in investigating the matter due to postings of different kinds of messages on social media, Zaidi said that people should desist from circulating unverified news and photographs related to the case as such things make investigation tougher for the investigation agencies.
He said that Himachal Police would in future hold state level awareness campaign on social media. The 16-year-old girl was a student at Mahasu government school in Kotkhai. She was kidnapped on July 4, while returning back from school.Two days later, police recovered her body from Halaila forests of Kotkhai. Post mortem had revealed that she was gang raped before her murder.