Pipili acquittal verdict to be challenged in High Court

The Crime Branch of Odisha Police will move the High Court challenging the Bhubaneswar First Additional Sessions court verdict acquitting the key accused of the 2011-2012 rape and murder of 19-year-old girl from Pipili in Puri district.

"The lower court has not taken the clinching circumstantial evidences in the case into consideration while deciding the case," said crime branch counsel Kamadev Pradhan on Tuesday.

Brothers Prashant Pradhan and Sukant Pradhan were arrested in connection with the case but the lower court acquitted them on Monday observing that the prosecution could not produce any solid evidence against the accused.

The trial court also said the circumstantial evidence and the forensic reports exhibited in the case did not match.

Soon after the verdict of the lower court was pronounced on Monday, the state crime branch police too had indicated that the acquittal verdict in this case would be challenged in the higher court.

The girl was rescued in an unconscious state from a paddy field on November 28, 2011. The girls father had reported the matter before the local police and the Pipili police initially investigated the case after registering a case.

But after the incident triggered massive public outcry following allegations that the local BJD MLA and the then minister Pradeep Maharathy was sheltering the accused, the state government handed over the case to crime branch police and Maharathy was asked to put in his papers.

The rape victim slipped into comatose state while undergoing treatment at the SCB Medical College and Hospital here and finally she died on June 21, 2012.