The Himachal Pradesh High Court today gave three weeks time to the CBI to conclude its investigations in the Kotkhai rape and murder case and also in the custodial death of one of the accused.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Sandeep Sharma passed the orders after perusing the status report submitted by the CBI in a sealed envelope.
The CBI said that the investigations are an advanced stage and sought four weeks time but the court asked it to complete the probe and submit the final report at the next hearing on October 13.
The high court had handed over both the cases to the CBI on July 19.
The CBI has so far submitted three status reports and during the last hearing on September 6, it had informed the court that investigations in the custodial death case are nearing completion.
The CBI had arrested six accused in the rape and murder case and later eight policemen including IGP Z H Zaidi and DSP Manoj Joshi were arrested in the custodial death case on July 29. All the arrested police personnel are in judicial custody.
The girl had gone missing on July 4 and her body was recovered from Haliala forests in Kotkhai area two days later and a case of rape and murder was registered after the post mortem report confirmed gangrape.
The incident triggered public outcry and the DGP constituted the Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Zaidi which was disbanded after the case was handed over to the CBI.
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