Hours after UP chief minister Mayawati said that she was not averse to recommending a CBI probe into the alleged rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Lakhimpur, the parents of the victim gave a letter to the district magistrate of Lakhimpur saying that they wanted a CBI inquiry into their daughter’s killing.
The Allahabad high court, on the other hand, directed the UP government to submit a status report on the CB-CID or any other agency probe into the Lakhimpur murder by June 17. The order was passed by a vacation division bench of Justices S.N. Shukla and D.K. Arora on a PIL filed by a local lawyer seeking direction for a CBI probe into the case. The court has asked the state government to respond by June 17.
The petitioner, while seeking a CBI probe into the incident, had also sought a direction for paying compensation of `25 lakhs to the victim’s family and deducting the compensation amount from the policemen concerned.
Meanwhile, Tarrannum, the mother of the slain girl Sonam, told reporters in Lakhimpur that only a CBI probe would help bring out the truth behind her daughter’s rape and murder.
“There are attempts being made to conceal the facts and save the guilty cops. Only a CBI probe will bring the guilty to book. I have seen my daughter’s body. She was raped. I am not satisfied by the state police investigations,” she said.
It may be recalled that the girl’s body was found propped up against tree on the night of June 10 inside the Nighasan police station premises in Lakhimpur district.
The police initially dismissed it as a case of suicide but the second post-mortem confirmed that the girl had been strangulated to death.
As many as 11 policemen at the police station and three doctors, who conducted the first autopsy, have been suspended.
The chief minister later handed over investigations to the CB-CID, but the girl’s family members are not satisfied with the direction for investigations.
“The CB-CID team has come with the firm belief that my daughter was not raped. If she was not raped, what was the motive behind the murder? I cannot trust the CB-CID investigations,” the girl’s mother said.
Ramchandra, an employee at the Nighasan police station, has already been arrested while sub-inspector B.K. Singh and two constables — Uma Shankar and Shiv Shankar — have been booked for tampering with evidence.