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Amid heavy security deployment, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday produced the youth arrested in connection with rape and murder of a minor girl from Kotkhai before a CBI court in Shimla on Wednesday.
The accused was sent to 14 days’ judicial custody by the court. As per media reports, the CBI will file the final status report in the rape and murder case before the High Court later in the afternoon.
The CBI has so far made only one arrest in the case since it was handed over the case eight months ago.
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On Monday, the CBI, who brought the accused from Delhi, took him to the forest near Kotkhai to identify the crime scene at Bankufar and gather evidence pertaining to the case. He was also taken to a nearby temple which is also considered to be linked with the crime.
He was later brought to Shimla for further investigations.
Sources said the accused, who was arrested on 15 April and whose identity has not yet been revealed, has allegedly confessed to have committed the crime.
The case pertains to the gangrape and murder of a 16-year-old girl in Kotkhai area of Shimla district, which shook the state in July 2017.
The state government had sought court intervention to hand over the investigation of case to the CBI after public pressure.
However, during the pendency of the petition, one of the six accused, arrested by the state police in the case, was killed in the lock-up on 19 July 2017, which flared up the public sentiments more.
While the court ordered a CBI probe into the rape and murder case on 19 July, it also asked CBI to probe the custodial death.
Nine arrests, including that of an Inspector General of Police heading the state Investigation team, have so far been made accused in the custodial death case and all of them are behind the bars.
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