Hair found from Devisthan match Kathua victim’s

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Pathankot, September 18 

The Central Forensic Science Laboratory in New Delhi has confirmed that DNA tests conducted by it had proved the hair samples found at Devisthan belonged to the eight-year-old Kathua girl who was raped and murdered. 

The victim belonged to the Bakerwal community. The defence had been claiming all along that the girl was not confined in Devisthan. 

Special public prosecutors Santokh Singh Basra and JK Chopra said the CFSL evidence clearly proved that the girl was kept at Devisthan after she was raped and before she was murdered.

Prosecution witness Dr Mansiha Upadhaya of the CFSL on Tuesday testified in the court of Pathankot District and Sessions Judge Dr Tejwinder Singh, who is presiding over the trial.

Dr Upadhaya deposed that DNA tests had also proved that another set of hair found from the same place belonged to the juvenile who is one of the eight accused. Earlier, a medical board had confirmed that the girl was indeed “sexually assaulted.” The CFSL also proved that the girl suffered from bleeding after being raped. Blood samples had been taken from the uterus of the deceased by the J&K Crime Branch and sent to the laboratory for testing.

“Another prosecution witness, Subham Malhotra, a shopkeeper, claimed that two of the accused, Parvesh Kumar Mannu and the juvenile, had taken four pieces of candy laced with sedatives from him,” said Basra. The defence had been claiming that the accused never gave any sedative-laced candy to the deceased.