Himachal HC gives 2 wks to CBI to complete Kotkhai case probe

The Himachal Pradesh High Court today expressed dissatisfaction over the probe in the Kotkhai rape-murder case and the custodial death of an accused and asked the CBI to complete the investigation within two weeks.
The orders were passed by a division bench of Acting Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Sharma.
The bench also served notice to members of Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by DGP in individual capacity and impleaded them as respondents in the case and asked them to appear in person in the court tomorrow.
The CBI which submitted the final status report in the case in a sealed envelope had asked for four weeks time and also requested the court not to make the report public as the case was very sensitive.

The court opened the report and perused it and expressed unhappiness over the progress of investigations.
The CBI had filed the first status report on August 2 and sought three months time but the court gave two weeks for filing the final status report.

The case was handed over to the CBI by the high court on 19 July on the state government's plea amid public outburst against the state police and the CBI filed two FIRs on July 22.
The 16-year-old girl had gone missing after school hours onJuly4 from Haliala forest in Kotkhai area of Shimla district.
Her bare body was found in the forest onJuly 6 and the postmortem report confirmed rape.

The DGP constituted the SIT headed by an officer of IG rank which arrested six persons and one of the accused was killed while in police custody in Kotkhai police station.
This trigerred protests across the state and the government then handed over the case to the CBI.