Scanning for clues to crack Gudia gangrape and murder case in Kotkhai area of Shimla district, the CBI is now banking on voice samples to nail the accused who had allegedly tried to hush-up the case.

Sources said the CBI has got hold of call recordings which reportedly contain conversations pertaining to hushing up the case between some members of Special Investigation Team (SIT).

The former Superintendent of Police, D W Negi, who was arrested on Thursday, was being grilled by the CBI sleuths from the past three days on the basis of the findings of call recordings.

“The CBI was asking Negi to name the real accused in Gudia case on the basis of the scientific evidence collected by it and these revelations might have led to his arrest,” sources said.

Though CBI’s attempt to get voice samples and zero in on the real accused got a setback during a hearing in the court on Friday as the lawyers of arrested cops didn’t appear in the court.

The court has posted the matter for hearing on 20 November.

Earlier on 15 November, the CBI had sought court’s permission to take voice samples of IG Zahur H Zaidi, DSP Theog Manoj Joshi, the then SHO Kotkhai Rajender Singh, ASI Deep Chand Sharma, Head Constables Surat Singh, Mohan Lal and Rafiq Ali and constable Ranjit Singh. The cops were arrested for alleged custodial death of one of the accused, Suraj, a Nepalese national, though the Police had claimed he was murdered by another accused Rajender Singh. The CBI teams which are investigating both Gudia case and custodial death were camping at the crime scene in Kotkhai in Shimla district since last one month.

Gudia, a tenth standard girl from Kotkhai, had gone missing while returning home from school on 4 July. Her body was found in the woods on 6 July with multiple injuries on her body. Her autopsy had confirmed that she was gangraped and later, strangulated to death.

Following public outrage over ghastly crime, the government had constituted a SIT which had arrested Ashish Chauhan, Rajender Singh alias Raju, Deepak, Subhash Singh Bisht, Suraj and Lokjan.

Though the action failed to satisfy the public and this had to public protests in upper Shimla even ransacking of Theog Police Station, leading the state government to refer the case to CBI.

On 19 July, the HP High Court had directed the CBI to probe into the Gudia case, along with custodial death case.