After the testimony of Gujarat based forensic lab experts on the involvement of more than one accused in infamous Kotkhai rape case, a former Deputy Advocate General (DAG) has accused CBI of hiding a report with malafide intentions.

“The CBI had conducted brain-mapping of five accused, Ashish Chauhan, Rajender, Lokjan, Deepak and Subhash and the report had indicated that the accused had experience knowledge of the crime,” Vinay Sharma, former DAG told The Statesman.

Sharma alleged in the report that was submitted in a court in Chandigarh recently but wasn’t submitted in HP High Court, the accused seemed to have experience knowledge of rape case.

But the report that was never tabled in district court in Shimla or High Court, confirms that the accused arrested by state government-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) were allegedly the real culprits.

However, the investigating agency ignored these facts and even hid these facts from the court. Later, the CBI gave clean chit to all five accused and never probed the angle thoroughly.

“The CBI got the report in October 2017 but they never submitted in court with malafide intentions as the elections were scheduled to be held in December in Himachal,” he alleged.

He demanded fresh probe into the case and said real culprits in Gudiya case should be brought to book while ensuring that any innocent isn’t implicated in the case falsely.

Earlier, Dr HV Acharya and Hemangi Shah, both assistant directors in forensic science labs based in Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat had told a CBI court at Chandigarh that as per their observation, the crime was committed by more than one person. (The trial in custodial death case is being conducted at a CBI court in Chandigarh.)

The experts had conducted polygraph, narco and BOESP tests on five accused, Ashish Chauhan, Rajinder Singh, Lokjan, Deepak and Subhash Singh.

It is worthwhile to mention here that a 16-year-old girl who was a student of Class 10 had gone missing while returning from school on 4 July 2017 in Kotkhai area of Shimla district.

Her body was found in the woods on 6 July with multiple injuries on her body and her autopsy indicated that she was gang-raped and strangulated to death.

This had led to public outrage after which the state government had constituted an SIT that had arrested six persons, Ashish Chauhan, Rajender Singh alias Raju, Deepak, Subhash Singh Bisht, Suraj and Lokjan on 12 and 13 July.

The cops had allegedly tortured the accused, excluding Ashish Chauhan to confess that they were involved in gangrape and murder which resulted in the death of Suraj on the intervening night of 18-19 July.

The case was then transferred to CBI by HP High Court and the investigating agency had arrested eight members of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) for the custodial death of Suraj. While Nilu was arrested on 15 April 2018 and CBI had claimed that he had raped and murdered the minor girl.