Shimla, Apr 28
Session Judge and CBI special Judge Shimla Rajiv Bhardwaj held Guidya rape and murder case accused guilty in all the four account as he convicted him in the court here on Wednesday.
The court held virtual hearing of this case Wednesday in which accused Nilu was presented through video conferencing from the jail. The judge held accused guilty under all the four charges and decided to pronounce the judgement and quantum of sentence to the lone accused on May 11, 2021.
An accused Anil Kumar alias Nillu alias Charani was held guilty under sections 376 (2)(i), 376 (A), and 302 of the Indian Penal Code and section 4 of the POCSO Act by Special Judge Rajeev Bhardwaj.
The judge said that of the 14 crucial points of evidence brought forth by the CBI, 12 were found to be against Nillu, the most important being the matching of his DNA with samples found on the crime spot.
The judge said that the motive for the crime was committed in a spur of the moment, with Nillu making up his mind to rape and kill the victim when he encountered her on a passage in the forest while she was walking from school to home.
Nillu, who attended the hearing virtually from a prison in Shimla, said that he did not commit the crime.
The trial commonly called the Gudiya case of convict of raping and killing a 16-year-old girl in a forest in Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh in 2017 had reached the conclusion stage.
On the afternoon of July 4, 2017, a 16-year-old Class 10 student in Shimla’s Kotkhai area left her school but never reached home. Amidst an ongoing sports tournament in the school, her brother and other schoolmates who usually accompanied her stayed
back and she decided to walk to her house alone – a 1.5-hour journey on foot, which included trekking through a forest.
Two days later, her body was found in a ditch in the forest, with her clothes, an empty liquor bottle, and some other items scattered around her. An autopsy indicated that she died due to the cumulative effect of “homicidal smothering and manual strangulation in a case of recent forcible penetrative sexual assault”. In layman’s language, she was raped and murdered.
The incident triggered massive protests and uproar in Kotkhai, Shimla and other parts of the hill state where crimes of such nature are rare.
CBI’s charge sheet blamed the accused that on the day of the crime, Nillu consumed liquor in the afternoon and met the victim on a deserted path while she was on her way home. He first had an altercation with her, following which he caught and dragged her into the forest adjoining the path, where he raped, smothered and strangled her.
He left the spot, but returned sometime later after purchasing liquor from someone’s house around 800 metres away, the CBI believes. While leaving, he left behind the empty liquor bottle at the crime scene, which according to the CBI has been identified by the seller.
Several people who saw him in the area before and after the crime or sold liquor to him on the day of the crime have identified him, the chargesheet said. Other witnesses include a widow whom he allegedly sexually assaulted a-day-and-a-half after the murder.
He also allegedly tried to steal someone’s clothes and molested another woman before leaving the area a few days later, the chargesheet said. Around 55 prosecution witnesses deposed during the trial in a special court in Shimla.
