JAMMU: J&K and Ladakh high court Thursday handed over to CBI the investigation into the death of a 13-year-old girl found hanging from a tree in Jammu’s Gharota area on Aug 15, slamming police’s SIT for showing “no serious-minded effort” to ascertain whether the minor died by suicide or was raped and murdered.Hearing a petition filed by her father, Mukhtyar Ali, who alleged laxity in the probe into alleged the rape and murder, Justice Rahul Bharti noted that the SIT conducted a “perfunctory, routine and directionless” investigation by assigning the matter to a probationary sub-inspector.The first status report filed by the Akhnoor SDPO on Oct 31, the court observed, was a two-page ‘ritualistic exercise’ that shifted the burden onto the grieving father to explain why the police investigation was flawed. Shockingly, even the child’s name was disclosed in the report in violation of legal protections.No executive magistrate was involved in the inquest as required under law, and the SIT’s progress remained ‘at the same page’ even in a second status report filed on Nov 24, the HC observed.
