Sowjanya murder case: Karnataka names Chetan Singh Rathore as new SIT

The Karnataka government on Friday replaced the chief of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up last month to probe the 2012 rape and murder of 17-year-old Sowjanya.

According to a home department order, inspector general of police (IGP) N Shashi Kumar, who was named head of the SIT on September 24, has been replaced by Criminal Investigation Department IGP Chetan Singh Rathore.

Venkatesh Prasanna, additional superintendent of police, Bengaluru Rural, who was also appointed to the SIT, has also been replaced by Hassan Additional SP Srinidhi. The remaining appointments have been retained, an officer familiar with the development said.

A government official said Shashi Kumar had asked to be relieved of the assignment. Prasanna also requested that he should be kept out after Sowjanya’s family objected to his inclusion.

Sowjanya, a student of SDM College in Ujire, went missing on October 9, 2012, while returning home. Her body was found the next day in a forested area near the Nethravathi River in Dharmasthala. A postmortem examination found that she had been sexually assaulted before her death.

The fresh investigation into her murder follows a September 21 order of the Supreme Court on a petition filed by Sowjanya’s mother, Kusumavathi Gowda. She sought a fresh probe after earlier investigations by the Karnataka CID and the Central Bureau of Investigation failed to establish who was responsible.

In its September 21 order, the court identified deficiencies in the earlier investigations and directed that officers associated with the previous probes by Belthangady police, CID and the Central Bureau of Investigation should not be included in the new team.

The court cited problems in collecting and preserving forensic evidence, including hair samples recovered from Sowjanya’s clothing that belonged to individuals other than Santhosh Rao, who was prosecuted and later acquitted. It said the samples could be compared with DNA evidence from potential suspects.

A vaginal swab collected during the investigation also could not be analysed because of improper storage, the court noted. The postmortem examination had not been videographed, and several articles belonging to Sowjanya had not been recovered.

On Thursday, the SIT examined eight police personnel associated with the earlier probe, who appeared at its Mangaluru office. They included former SIT officer Kalimar, head constable Sundar Shetty, woman head constable Savitha Shetty and retired SIT officer Kushalappa Gowda, along with four others.

The special team has also issued notices to over 15 personnel involved in different stages of the investigation by Belthangady police and the CID.

The SIT also collected a blood sample from Sowjanya’s mother at the Belthangady court on October 23 for DNA analysis.