By IANS,
Bhubaneswar : The crime branch of Odisha police Saturday filed a chargesheet in a local court against two persons in the much publicised case of assault on a woman in Puri district but ruled out her being gang raped.
The police filed the chargesheet in the court of the judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) at Pipili, 16 km from here.
In the chargesheet, the investigating agency said it had examined a very large number of people, including witnesses, experts and doctors, but did not find any evidence to substantiate the allegation of rape.
The crime branch said the main accused, Prashant Pradhan was friendly with the victim and developed a feeling of intimacy for her.
A few months prior to the incident, he came under the impression that the victim had become friendly with other persons and was avoiding his company. On the day of the incident, he alone attacked the victim.
He attempted to strangulate the victim using her stole and ran away thinking the victim was dead. The other accused, Sukanta Pradhan, who is a brother of Prashant had threatened the victim’s family, the crime branch said.
However, according to the family of the 19-year-old, she was allegedly gangraped Nov 28 by some people near her village Arjunagoda, barely 10 km from Bhubaneswar.
They allege that the rapists were the same people who had assaulted her in 2008 and against whom she had put up a determined fight in court in a molestation case.
The shocking incident came to light recently when the girl was denied proper treatment at a hospital and some journalists reported about her.
The incident also created a political storm, prompting Agriculture Minister Pradeep Maharathy to resign Jan 19 on moral grounds after the opposition and the girl’s family alleged that he had protected her attackers.
The incident is being investigated by the crime branch of the state police and a one-man judicial commission headed by a retired judge of the Orissa High Court.
The crime branch said it has arrested the accused persons and conducted lie-detector polygraph tests on them.
The condition of the woman who slipped into comma after the alleged gang rape continued to be critical at Sriram Chandra Bhanja Medical College and Hospital at Cuttack, 26 km from here, although all her vital organs were functioning normally and her blood pressure, too, was normal.