The ghastly rape and murder case of 16-year-old girl in Kotkhai area of Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh is again in limelight with the accused pleading not guilty, raising further doubts in the mind of the victim’s parents and social activists.

The accused, Anil Kumar alias Neelu, a woodcutter, on Friday not only retracted from his statement, given to Central Bureau Investigation but claimed that he had been falsely implicated.

Social activists, who were already raising doubts over the CBI probe and were of the opinion that Neelu alone couldn’t have committed the crime, are now again voicing their concerns.

Even the Class X girl’s parents had raised question on the investigations and had reportedly said it was not possible from him to have single-handedly committed the crime.

“Since the beginning of the investigations, there were several loopholes that resulted in HP High Court handing over the probe to CBI and people were confident that the agency would be able to solve the case.

Though the CBI theory that the victim was raped and murdered by Neelu, couldn’t be accepted on face value,” Deepak Sundriyal, a member of Madad Sewa Trust which had started campaign for seeking justice for the victim said.

He said the former Director General of Police, HP, Somesh Goyal had claimed that the girl was gangraped and later murdered. “How can it be possible for a DGP to wrongly conclude that the girl was gangraped. The claims which were made in front of the entire media, couldn’t had been made without any scientific evidence,” he said.

Now, the accused had refuted the charges saying he had no role in the crime and it further raises doubts as to whether CBI investigations were on right track or it was just a mere theory without any facts as was the case in Arushi murder case, he added.

The CBI had charged Neelu under 376, 302 of IPC and POCSO Act and had listed 62 eyewitnesses to the case against him.

The court had admitted the accused’s plea and had granted his requested for attorney.

The tenth standard girl from Kotkhai, had gone missing while returning home from school on 4 July and her body was found in the woods on 6 July with multiple injuries marks.

Following public outrage over ghastly crime, the government had constituted a SIT which had arrested six persons, Ashish Chauhan, Rajender Singh alias Raju, Deepak, Subhash Singh Bisht, Suraj and Lokjan for the ghastly crime on 12 and 13 July.

The cops had allegedly tortured five accused and it had resulted in the death of Suraj on the intervening night of 18-19 July. Nine cops for arrested for the custodial death.

The CBI had had arrested one Anil Kumar, a woodcutter, from Hatkoti area of Shimla district on 14 April. Neelu, a native of Baijnath in Kangra district, was arrested on the basis of DNA evidence and he had reportedly confessed to have committed the crime.