The Supreme Court on Thursday adjourned a plea seeking CBI probe into the alleged murder of a five-year-old girl at Jadupur village in Nayagarh district of Odisha to Friday.
The bench, led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, deferred the hearing on this matter, as the Orissa High Court order on the case was not presented before it.
The Writ petition has been filed by the victim’s mother, claiming that 75 percent of bones of her daughter were missing. Senior Advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing for the petitioner, submitted, “The issue in this case is whether it is a case of organ harvesting or rape and murder, as has been claimed by the state. The facts completely contradict the second possibility.”
The bench, without going into the merits of the case, asked Mr Jethmalani, “Where was this case filed?” Mr Jethmalani answered “Orissa”. Then the bench said, “You should approach the Orissa High Court in that case.” To which Mr Jethmalani replied that the High Court has dismissed the petition. Thereafter, the bench asked Mr Jethmalani to produce the order of the High Court.
Mr Jethmalani assured the bench that he will produce both orders of the Orissa High Court tomorrow. The bench then adjourned the matter.
The mother of the minor had earlier alleged, “The cops have found 12 pieces of bones along with the skull. Our body has 206 bones; so, where are the other bones? The SIT is making stories just to save the actual criminal. Babuli Nayak and his gang are involved in the crime.”
Demanding a CBI inquiry into the case, she had reiterated that Saroj (who has been arrested as the prime accused in the case) was not involved in the crime.
On the other hand, Arun Bothra, chief of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the ‘rape and murder case’ of the five-year-old girl, clarified that her bones were not missing.
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“No bones of the deceased girl are missing. The post-mortem report has no mention of any missing bone, and the doctors too have corroborated the same. The towel which Saroj used to clean blood stains after killing the girl, has been sent to a laboratory for testing. The accused had washed the towel several times, but bloodstains were found. The towel and leggings are major evidence in the case,” he added.
Meanwhile, asked as to why the police sniffer dogs failed to trace the decomposed body by following the trail of the stench, Mr Bothra said, “The SIT hasn’t used dog squad. So I cannot comment on that.”