SIT clean chit to accused in repeat gangrape case

CHANDIGARH: The five men who were accused of raping a Dalit girl from Rohtak for the second time in three years were exonerated on Monday by the special investigation team (SIT) probing the case.
The SIT submitted the discharge report of the accused to the court of judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) Deepti, who ordered their release and fixed October 29 as the next date of hearing.Rohtak superintendent of police (SP) Rakesh Arya said all the five accused were discharged as they were found to be innocent during the course of investigations.“SIT had moved the application for the discharge after receiving all the reports, including the DNA samples and forensic reports,“ he said. The accused -identified as Sandeep Hooda and Pramod of Rohtak, and Jagmohan, Sandeep Kumar and Amit -were arrested in July on the charges of gang rape of the Dalit girl, a college student. The incident came light on July 13, when the girl was found unconscious near Sukhpura Chowk in Rohtak. She was rushed to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), Rohtak.
The girl and her mother had alleged that she gang-raped for the second time by the same five accused after three years. The accused are already facing trial for the first gang rape in 2013. Rohtak police constituted an SIT to look into the July 13 incident. The team had arrested Sandeep, Jagmohan and Amit, while Akash and Mausam are yet to be nabbed.
After probing further, SIT arrested Hooda and Pramod as the two were last seen with the victim in a hotel of Rohtak.Sources said the police had got hold of the CCTV footage from the hotel. Both Hooda and Pramod were not named by the victim in her complaint to the police. The girl and the accused were subjected to DNA examination. In a report received last month, the samples tested negative.