It has been more than a decade since the rape and murder of 17-year-old Sowjanya brought thousands of angry protesters out on the streets in the temple towns of Ujjire and Dharmasthala in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district. They alleged that the real culprits were being protected by the police because they enjoyed the patronage of a Padma awardee, who is also a powerful religious leader considered a living deity by his followers.
While Sowjanya’s family alleges these accusations were never properly probed, Santhosh Rao, the suspect presented by the police who spent six years in prison, has now been found innocent.
A teenager does not return home
It was raining on October 9, 2012 when Sowjanya – a second PU student at the Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College in Ujire – got off the bus at the Snanaghatta stop and started walking towards her house at around 4.15 pm. She waved at her uncle and aunt who were passing in a jeep in the opposite direction. But she never reached home.
Her frantic family started searching for her around 7 pm. The night passed without any news from Sowjanya. The next day, her body was found near the Netravati river, just about 300 metres from her house. The body was half-naked, her left hand tied to a tree using the shawl from her uniform. To conceal evidence of rape, her perpetrator/s had soiled her genitals with mud.
In a matter of minutes, around 3,000 to 4,000 people gathered at the spot, leaving not much for the fingerprint bureau to collect. Though this should have made inspector Yogesh Kumar, who was at the spot, more alert, he did not videograph the spot or the body. He seized only her bag and not her books.
On October 11, even as the region was simmering with protests, Santhosh Rao was sitting at the stairs leading to the famed Bahubali statue in Dharmasthala. That’s when he was caught by a few residents, beaten up, and turned over to the police. There were 17 injuries found on his body, including nail marks. The police said these nail mark wounds were inflicted by Sowjanya.
On October 13, the police claimed that Santhosh had confessed to the crime and had taken them to Manasanka where the crime was allegedly committed. His shirt and trousers were recovered from a hilltop nearby, 100 metres from where Sowjanya’s body was found. But here too, the police did nothing more. No experts were brought in to comb the area where the crime was supposed to have been committed. No samples of hair, skin or blood were even taken.
Suspicion grows about who the perpetrator is
As the Belthangady police went about building their case, the people in the town and Sowjanya’s family weren’t convinced. Their suspicions were aroused because of the three men who captured Santhosh Rao: Malik Jain, Udaya Jain, and Dheeraj Khella Jain. The family and several people in the town were not convinced that the three men were good samaritans who caught a suspicious-looking man. This is because one of Sowjanya’s relatives claimed that she had overheard the three men speaking on the day of Sowjanya’s disappearance. They were apparently talking among themselves in a conspiratorial tone and one of them said, “nothing more could be done due to the rain”.
Malik Jain was an accountant with the Dharmasthala Trust, while Dheeraj was the son of a senior manager of the Annapoorna Trust. It is well-known in Dharmasthala that these men were friends of Nischal Jain, the nephew of Rajya Sabha MP D Veerendra Heggade, the hereditary administrator of the famous Dharmasthala Temple. Heggade, who became the 21st Dharmadhikari of the Dharmasthala Temple in 1968 at the age of 20, came under immense pressure in the days following the murder as thousands of protesters called for the arrest of his nephew and the three others.
As the Dharmadhikari, Heggade is sought after by all political parties and his word holds a lot of sway in Dharmasthala. But as public anger increased, the Dharmadhikari was forced to hold a press meet to shield his nephew and claimed that he was in New York the day Sowjanya was killed.
The CID, which had taken over the case in November 2012, interrogated the three men, but found no evidence against them. In November 2013, the CBI took over the case, but they too focused only on tightening the case against the suspect produced by the local police.
Sowjanya’s father Chanappa Gowda, however, did not let it go. He filed a petition in court asking that the three men be made additional accused and summoned in the case. In November 2016, the sessions judge in Bengaluru allowed it. Just as the family thought that the three suspects would finally be made part of the case, the three approached the Karnataka High Court in January 2021 and obtained a stay.
The investigation by the Belthangady police, the CID, and finally the CBI against Santhosh Rao was primarily based on three things: his confession, recovery of his clothes, and the injury marks on his body. But the court found that none of these were foolproof or enough to implicate Santhosh Rao.
Setting up an accused
Santhosh Rao was handed over to the police by Malik Jain after he was reportedly found sitting suspiciously in a dark place near Bahubali Betta in the city, close to Manasanka where the victim’s body was found. Police constable Kushalappa Gowda, who detained Santhosh, said that he had injuries on his body and that Santosh later took them to Manasanka, the place where the victim was allegedly murdered, and also to the place where he had hidden his clothes. The police, however, did not comb either spot for more evidence.
The post-mortem of the victim was done under poor lighting and the doctor performing it was not requisitioned by the police to collect the viscera (internal organs) even though ligature marks were found on the neck.
The forensic doctor deposing before the court methodically dismantled the case against Santhosh, stating that the victim’s fingernails did not contain his blood or skin particles and neither was the soil found on Sowjanya’s clothes present on his. The doctor further told the court that vaginal swabs, a critical piece of evidence, were improperly collected and preserved.
Neither semen stains nor the victim’s hair were found on the accused’s clothes. The victim’s DNA was not found on his clothes. All the police found on his clothes was his own DNA and the DNA of another mans.
Santhosh was also found to be suffering from phimosis, a condition of the penis where the foreskin cannot be pulled back. The doctors opined that even though Santhosh was capable of sexual intercourse, it would cause him severe pain.
CCTV footage not collected
Prosecution mishandling a trial or police doing a shoddy investigation – both leading to acquittals – is not a rarity in India. But the June 16 verdict in Sowjanya’s rape and murder case goes further by detailing each misstep in the investigation.
Importantly, the court has ordered a probe against those who investigated the case after it found that the police manipulated the investigation, created fake evidence, and botched medical reports. This is a vindication for the girl’s family and the activists who have questioned the police, CID, and CBI investigation. The verdict, which has once again kindled public anger, is also a damning indictment of the investigating agencies and reveals shocking details about how the probe was compromised at every step.
The reason the judge asked for a probe against the officers is not merely because they were inefficient, but they seemed to have wilfully ignored crucial evidence. The Prakruthi Chikitsalaya, a nature cure hospital in Dharmasthala, is right down the road from the bus stop where Sowjanya got down and hardly 300 metres from where her body was found. Sub-Inspector Yogesh Kumar told the court that they didn’t bother to collect the CCTV footage from the gate of Prakruthi Chikitsalaya, which happens to be run by the Dharmasthala temple management. The camera, which is installed adjacent to the main road, could have provided crucial evidence in the case, according to the victim’s family. The police officer added that details from mobile towers were collected but not handed over to his successor.
The same officer was also at the scene of the crime when the body was discovered. He admitted that the victim’s underwear was not on her body when she was found and that his team failed to collect critical evidence, including fingerprints and a chit found at the crime scene which could have been analysed for handwriting. The crime scene was not videographed by a professional. Later in court, another police officer, Bhaskar Rai, admitted that he did not collect the CCTV footage from Prakruthi Chikitsalaya either.
No evidence to corroborate confession
Other than his confession to the police, the premise for Santhosh’s arrest was injuries found on his body which the prosecution had maintained were due to his struggle with the victim.
However, investigating officer Bhaskar Rai admitted before the court that there was no expert report about the injuries found on Santhosh’s body. The forensic doctors examining Santhosh said that those injuries were caused when he was apprehended and beaten up by the public.
Adding to the suspicions over the police’s version of events was the death of Ravi Poojari, a watchman with the Dharmasthala Trust and a witness in the case. While the police said that he died by suicide, a witness in the case said that he was murdered.
Lack of CBI enquiry against the Jains
The case documents also reveal that other than brain mapping and polygraph tests done in March 2015, the police did not investigate Malik, Dheeraj, and Udaya further. The chargesheet in the case named Santhosh as the lone accused. This is despite witness statements and evidence suggesting the involvement of more people in the crime.
The police failed to record the statements of two key witnesses – Ashrath Khalid and Varsha – who were known to Sowjanya and could potentially screen the culprits. The duo, along with several others in the case, had raised suspicions that the crime involved more than one accused.
What next
After Congress leader Siddaramaiah was sworn in as the 22nd chief minister of Karnataka on May 13, 2013, one of the questions he was often asked was about the probe into Sowjanya’s death. With news coming out on November 1 that the CID – which was given the case by the previous BJP government – had given a clean chit to Malik, Dheeraj, and Udaya, pressure grew on the Siddaramaiah government to act. On November 6, Siddaramaiah decided to transfer the case to the CBI.
The family now wants the chief minister to intervene again. The Karnataka High Court, while granting a stay in favour of the three men, observed that the trial was at an advanced stage and it would be improper to arraign more accused then. The court also agreed that it would be an injustice to the three men if they were included now.
Kusumavati, Sowjanya’s mother, is clear about her demands. The family wants the case handed over to a Special Investigation Team and action taken against Dr Mahabala Shetty, professor and HOD of forensic medicine, who examined Santhosh Rao on October 12, 2012; Dr Rashmi N, gynaecologist at Belthangady Medical Hospital who conducted the post-mortem examination on Sowjanya; Dr Adam who conducted the post-mortem on Sowjanya and also examined Santhosh and issued medical examination reports; and investigating officer Yogesh Kumar.
“We want justice for our daughter. I am living only to see the perpetrators get punished. The police and CBI probe didn’t look into the real perpetrators despite our repeated requests,” Kusumavati told TNM.
Photographs by Bhuvan Malik.
TNM has used Sowjanya’s name with written consent from her mother.
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