Dalit kids’ killing: CBI court discharges all 11 accused

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 19

The CBI special court on Monday discharged all 11 accused in the 2015 Sunpedh killing case, in which two Dalit children were burnt to death at a village in Faridabad district.

The court also dismissed the protest petition of the children’s father, Jitender, against the closure report of the CBI.

2015 CASE FILE

• On October 20, 2015, Jitender, his wife Rekha and their children — Vaibhav (2) and nine-month-old Divya — were asleep
• Jitender alleged that between 2 am and 2.30 am, several persons entered their house by scaling the boundary wall and poured petrol on them
• He claimed that two of them set the kids on fire and fled. Vaibhav and Divya were burnt to death; the case was handed over to the CBI on Oct 22, 2015

CBI special Judge Sushil Garg said, “It is pertinent to mention here that mere suspicion against the aforesaid accused persons is not sufficient to proceed against them as distinguished from the grave suspicion. Mere suspicion cannot take the place of proof.

Defence counsel Abhishek Singh Rana said, “From the very beginning, we have maintained that 11 people have been falsely framed. But the CBI has failed to nab the real accused.”

The 11 people who got discharged had to stay in the jail for three months after the case was registered. There is a 12th accused too, who is a juvenile.

The state government had handed over the case to the CBI on October 22, 2015, which filed the closure report in 2019.

The CBI court observed that the forensic reports from Karnal, New Delhi and Hyderabad stated that “there is no forcible entry into the house and into the bedroom by any outsider”. “All forensic experts are unanimous that the fire originated from inside the bedroom from the centre of the bed and the room was bolted from inside when the fire erupted. There was no indication of outsiders having come inside the room. There was no sign of disturbance outside the room,” read the report.

The court also noted that the polygraph tests of the accused were not deceptive, but those of Jitender and his wife Rekha reflected deception “indicating that they are hiding some vital information instead of revealing the truth”.

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