Odisha SIT pins hopes on scientific proof to nail Nayagarh 'rape-murder' accused

BHUBANESWAR: The SIT, probing the alleged rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in Nayagarh district in July, is pinning hopes on the scientific evidence to bring the accused Saroj Sethy to book.
As of now, the SIT has not stumbled upon any clinching physical evidence or eyewitness to make its case stronger. Experts said the vital physical evidence might have been damaged, either naturally or deliberately, owing to the poor investigation by the Nayagarh Sadar police in the initial stage.The SIT took over the investigation from the police only on November 28.
The girl went missing on July 14. Her body was recovered near the village pond on July 23. Nayagarh Sadar police was investigating the case earlier. Since they did not conduct a proper and professional probe, the government ordered the SIT to investigate the case. “The Sadar police should have gathered and examined the physical evidence properly. By the time SIT intervened, the physical evidence had already decayed,” retired DGP Sanjeev Marik said.
The SIT is waiting for the outcome of the scientific report of a blood-stained towel and a wire, which were recovered from Sethy’s home on Wednesday. Besides, the findings of the scientific examination of a leggings recovered from the village pond on Tuesday would also play a key role in the investigation. The leggings purportedly belonged to the deceased. Sethy had reportedly confessed before the SIT that he threw the girl’s leggings in the pond after disposing her body on July 14.
“It is difficult to get eyewitnesses as such sexual assaults mostly occur behind closed doors. We hope the polygraph test on Sethy would work as a corroborative evidence against him. His answers during the lie detector test were found to be deceptive,” an SIT official said.
The SIT would send a coconut tree’s inflorescence, which was found near the body, to the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology in Hyderabad and the National Institute of Plant Genome Research in Delhi to ascertain whether the seized coconut tree’s branch belonged to the tree of Sethy’s home.
However, the SIT is unlikely to establish any solid evidence from the girl’s frock, which bore semen stains. The Nayagarh Sadar police, which should have sent her dress to the forensic laboratory immediately after recovering her decomposed body on July 23, sent it for forensic examination last month, just a few days before the SIT took over the probe.
“We doubt whether the semen stain, which is almost over 4-month-old, will now match with Sethy’s. The DNA profiling of the semen stain may have deteriorated over the months,” senior lawyer Siddharth Das said.