CBI registers FIR into alleged rape and killing of boy in Gujarat's Morbi in 2015

New Delhi, Sep 5 (PTI) The CBI has registered a case into the alleged rape and murder of a schoolboy in Gujarat's Morbi district nine years ago, officials said on Thursday.

The case was registered on the directions of the Gujarat High Court, which handed over the investigation to the CBI on August 16 this year and flagged the CID Crime, Rajkot's "inability "to "trace the suspect and offender or properly detect the offence".

The case pertains to a schoolboy in Morbi who did not return from school on December 15, 2015. His father went to the school trustee to seek the whereabouts of his son, where he was told that all the students had already left.

The minor's friends confirmed they had all left the school at about 12:15 PM.

The father informed his relatives and searched again when he found his son's bicycle near a pan shop. When confronted again, the school trustee told the father that students of a particular caste said the boy had left with someone on an Activa or Pledger motorcycle.

When the boy could not be traced, a case of kidnapping was registered at a police station in Morbi. Three days later, the body of the boy was found near the Machchhu Dam.

The postmortem report revealed that the boy had been "brutally murdered after being subjected to unnatural sex", the High Court had noted. The police added sections of murder and unnatural sex in the case after the report came.

Not satisfied by the probe, the victim's father approached the Gujarat High Court.

"The petitioner (father of the victim) raised concerns about the Mahants of the Swaminarayan Temple, where his son used to go for worship. However, the investigating officer did not pursue this line of inquiry, leading to the filing of the present petition," Justice Hasmukh D Suthar noted.

The Director General of Police had constituted a Special Investigation Team on September 27, 2017, to investigate the offence, it said.

"However, till date, no fruitful outcome of the investigation has been reported, and no suspect or offender has been traced," the High Court had pointed out.

The High Court gave three weeks, on July 25 this year, to investigate the offence and submit a report. K.K. Jadeja, Detective Police Inspector, (CID Crime) Rajkot, submitted a report before the High Court on August 16.

"After perusing the report, it appears that the same story has been repeated, which indicates his inability to trace the suspect and offender or properly detect the offence," Justice Suthar said.

"Considering the seriousness of the offence" and "the inability" of the police to detect an offence and the fact that more than nine years have passed without any fruitful outcome of the investigation, he said, it is expedient to direct the police to hand over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation. PTI ABS AS AS