Amidst controversy over the claims of Bulundshahr Police on arresting the perpetrators of the gruesome gangrape during a hold-up on national highway -91 on July 29, CBI sleuths officially started the probe on Friday.
A CBI team comprising 12 officials led by DIG Sharad Agarwal reached Bulandshahr on Friday morning and went to the scene of crime and collected some material evidence. The team discussed the incident with police officials including SP (City), SP (Rural) and other cops and collected documents including the medical report.
Earlier the CBI has registered a case under Sections 395, 397, 376D, 342 of IPC and 4 of POCSO Act in New Delhi in compliance with orders from High Court of Allahabad which took suo motu congnizance on Friday last.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice D B Bhosale and Justice Yashwant Varma passed the order a day after the state government submitted a status report on the probe into the incident.
A release confirmed that the CBI took over the probe of case no 838/2016 registered at Kotwali Dehat police station of Bulandshahr pertainingto abduction, dacoity & rape of a woman and her daughter by 5 - 6 assailants in the fields in Dostpur village of Bulandshahr on the night of 29/30 July 2016.
A woman and her 13-year-old daughter were brutally gang-raped after being dragged out of their car as they were heading from Noida to Shahjahanpur with their family on July 29.
The incident evoked huge outcry and the SP government drew widespread criticism over the plumetting law and order situation in UP. Onits part, the UP government suspended six police officials, including the SSP and had arrested six people including prime accused Salim Bawariya. Ironically, the police later told the court that two of the accused be released as ‘they were innocent and had been wrongly framed’.