The Special CBI Court in the city acquitted the lone accused in the 2012 Soujanya rape and murder case on Friday.
The case pertains to the rape and murder of a 17-year-old pre-university student of SDM College, Ujire in 2012. The case is controversial as the local people, and the victim’s family had alleged that Dharmasthala’s Veerendra Heggade’s family members were involved in the case. However, multiple agencies gave members of the family clean chit, and did not charge them.
The Belthangady police had arrested Santosh Rao, who allegedly suffered from depression and other mental ailments, for the rape and murder. The case later probed by the State’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) also gave a clean chit to members of Mr. Heggade’s family. Harshendra Kumar’s son Nischal Jain, who was being accused of involvement in the case by protestors, was not even in the country on the day of the crime, CID said. It did not name three others being named as suspects by the victim’s family and protestors - Uday Jain, Mallik Jain, Ashrith Jain, and charged only Santosh Rao.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, heeding protests, handed over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2013, and the agency filed a chargesheet in 2014 again naming only Santosh Rao as the lone accused in the case. The trial in the case hit several roadblocks, including the court pulling up CBI and the State police for bungling the probe. CBI even filed a petition for further investigation into the case, and to list Uday Jain, Mallik Jain, Ashrith Jain, also as accused in the case. But both petitions were quashed,” said Shivanand P., Public Prosecutor in the case.
The judge Santosh C. G., of 50th Additional Sessions Court found there was no sufficient evidence to conclude Santosh Rao committed the crime.
