India News | POCSO Court Says Nayagarh Girl Murder Case Accused, a Minor
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. A Pocso court here on Tuesday observed that the lone accused arrested in the alleged rape and murder of a 5-year-old girl in Nayagarh district was a minor and turned down the special investigation team's (SIT) plea for allowing a narco-analysis test on him.
Nayagarh (Odisha), Jan 5 (PTI) A Pocso court here on Tuesday observed that the lone accused arrested in the alleged rape and murder of a 5-year-old girl in Nayagarh district was a minor and turned down the special investigation team's (SIT) plea for allowing a narco-analysis test on him.
The POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) court judge, U B Jena while hearing a plea of the accused person's counsel Prafulla Satpathy said that the arrested person was minor. The counsel submitted the matriculation certificate and date of birth proof of the accused while claiming that he was a minor.
"The court while going through these certificates found that my client is a minor as his date of birth is February 6, 2003. The court in its observation said that the age of the accused was 17 years, 5 months and 8 days on the day of occurrence of the crime," said Satpaty.
He informed that the court also referred the case to the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) as the accused was a minor.
The court rejected the plea of the SIT for the narco analysis test of the accused saying that the JJB will take a decision in this regard, the counsel said.
Earlier on December 20, the SIT had arrested a college student as the lone and prime accused in the alleged kidnap, rape and murder of a five-year-old girl of Jadupur village under Nayagarh sadar police station area. Though the girl went missing on July 14, the police could arrest one person five months after the incident following a statewide outcry over the incident.
While arresting the accused, SIT chief and senior IPS officer Arun Bothra had claimed that the arrested person was a major and therefore produced in the POCSO court. He also claimed that the police have found semen of the arrested person in the dress of the girl.
Earlier in the day, the SIT had produced the accused in the Special POCSO Court and prayed for his Narco analysis test.
The girl was killed on July 15, 2020 and her skeletal remains found on July 23, 2020, the matter came to the limelight after her parents attempted self-immolation in front of the state Assembly on November 24. The government thereafter ordered an SIT probe in the face of criticism on the alleged police inefficiency in solving the case.
The SIT, which started a probe into the incident arrested the college student, who has alleged that the police forced him to confess the crime. "I was beaten up by the police for admitting the crime," the accused said while being whisked away by the police while producing him in court.
Opposition BJP, which has been demanding resignation of Odisha Agriculture minister Arun Kumar Sahoo accusing him of shielding the main culprit in the little girl murder case, ridiculed the SIT for projecting a minor as the main accused in the case.
"The court rejecting the SIT's claim is sufficient to say the nature of investigation being carried out in the case," said state BJP spokesperson Golak Mohapatra.
Meanwhile, the BJP Mahila Morcha on Tuesday announced a series of agitation programme to mount press pressure on the state government for hand over the case to the CBI.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)