Koraput rape: BJP, Congress term forensic flip-flop a cover-up

BHUBANESWAR: The opposition, BJP and Congress, on Saturday described the flip-flop in forensic report of Kunduli rape survivor as a government attempt to cover up the crime.
A forensic test report of the Class IX girl’s samples, done on October 14 last year by state government-run State Forensic Science Laboratory (SFSL) in Bhubaneswar, showed her cloths were stained with semen of two persons of two different blood groups (A and B).The girl was allegedly raped on October 10 last year. She committed suicide on January 22.
However, after the report was aired by news channels, the laboratory in a press release issued on Friday dubbed the October 14 report as preliminary. It said the findings in the preliminary report are not correct.
The laboratory said the final report was prepared on October 23 after careful and meticulous examination of the exhibits by a group of trained scientists through various methods and techniques including DNA profiling test.
Addressing a press conference here, BJP MLA Pradip Purohit said the flip-flop showed the government has done a massive cover-up exercise. “Otherwise, how can there be such stark contrast between the two reports of the same laboratory. It’s a clear case of cover-up to save the government from embarrassment,” Purohit said.
Echoing similar views, Congress leader Pradeep Majhi said the investigative agencies did one mistake after the other on the rape and to hide one mistake, they went on lying. “First they tried to fix up some innocent relatives in the case. Then they said there was no rape. Since they said there was no rape, they wanted to stick to it and seem to have influenced the laboratory to change the report,” Majhi said.
SFSL director Purna Chandra Mandal said the laboratory was not under pressure from anyone. “It has submitted a fair report,” he said.