After nearly 12 years of the incident in which a 24-year-old pharmacy student from Tenali was raped and killed in her hostel at Ibrahimpatnam, near Vijayawada, a team of CBI sleuths led by Superintendent of Police P. Vimala Aditya, experts from National Forensic Science Laboratory and CFSL, on Saturday exhumed the remains of the body of the girl at the Idgah in Chenchupeta.
The entire re-postmortem was done carefully over six hours in the presence of police, revenue, the girl’s parents and religious heads and the entire premises was kept out of bounds for the public.
The CBI took up the case and started investigation after the the High Court ordered the CBI to reinvestigate the case afresh, based on a slew of petitions filed by the victim’s parents alleging that vital evidence in the case was destroyed in the lower court while the appeal petition was pending in the High Court.
On Saturday morning, the CBI team arrived at the burial ground site and with the help of local revenue and police personnel began collecting evidence. They collected remains of bones of lower jaw, skull, elbow joint and preserved them in a box. Professors of Forensic Medicine from Gandhi Medical College and Osmania Medical College were present as the bones were placed in the form of a human body. Experts from Central Forensic Science Laboratory were also present.
The CBI team refused to divulge any details as hundreds of locals waited outside. The remains would be taken to CFSL and NFSL in Hyderabad and further evidence would be collected.
Father hopes for justice
Turning emotional after watching the entire procedure, the father of the girl said that they hoped that justice would be delivered after 12 years. “This re-postmortem has been possible only after our religious heads gave their consent. We are hopeful that the real accused would be caught and justice would be delivered in this case,:” he said.
The case hit the headlines with the trial court sentencing the accused to life imprisonment and the High Court acquitting him. The State government had constituted a Special Investigation Team to re-investigate the case, before the the High Court handed over the case to the CBI.
