CBI will have to look into rape angle

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CBI, which has already charge-sheeted two priests and one nun for murdering Sister Abhaya, will have to look into the rape angle once again following Tuesday's verdict by the Chief Judicial Magistrate court here.It remains to be seen how the CBI will interpret the judgment against the two officials of chief chemical examiners' lab who were given the benefit of doubt by the Investigating agency earlier. The stand of the CBI so far had been that it would not be interfering with the case related to the tampering of chemical examination records as another case was pending with the CJM court, Thiruvananthapuram.In reply to a petition filed by human rights activist Jomon Puthenpurackal at the CBI court, Ernakulam, the CBI DySP had submitted this version on record.Sources in the CBI told Express that both R Geetha and M Chithra had been interrogated in detail by the CBI team which had reinvestigated the Abhaya murder case following the Express report on April 12, 2007. "The team led by SP R M Krishna and Deputy SP R K Agarwal had interrogated both these officials after summoning them up to New Delhi. The services of Central forensic experts were sought to crosscheck their statements,'' said a senior CBI official.Geetha and Chithra told the investigators that they hadn't made any deliberate correction in the work register. What happened was an act to correct a mistake which happened during the test, they explained. It is learnt that the forensic experts commissioned by the CBI gave an advice that they might be given the benefit of doubt as there was a probability for error in the tests concerned. ''The CBI team had to depend on their advice as there was no othersupporting evidence suggest ing a rape attempt,'' said the CBI officer. But, the CJM court on Tuesday refused to buy the same arguments by the accused while finding a prima facie case against them. The statement of prosecution witness Murali Krishna, who was a former director of State Forensic Lab, refuted the claims of Geetha and Chithra that the erasing and rewriting were made to correct an earlier mistake.Murali Krishna said any such mistake should be corrected by striking off the earlier value and authenticating it by initials.It proved to be the turning point in the case. As the court has made it clear that both the accused wouldn't get any immunity for government servants because the unlawful acts committed during the course of discharge of duty couldn't be considered as part of the duty, there is no hurdle to begin the trial in the case.