MANGALURU: The Karnataka government on Thursday constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by Inspector General Of Police(IGP) N Shashi Kumar to re-investigate the sensational 2012 Sowjanya rape and murder case that occured in Dharmasthala village of Belthangady taluk in Dakshina Kannada district.
The order issued on Thursday lists C H Sudheer Kumar Reddy, DIG and police commissioner of Mangaluru City, Nisha James, SP, Intelligence Bengaluru, Lokesh Jagalasar, SP, CID Bengaluru and Venkatesh Prasanna, Additional SP Bengaluru Rural as members.
This comes amidst Supreme Court order issued on September 21 directing a fresh probe into the rape and murder of 17-year-old Sowjanya at Ujire in Belthangady taluk. The court had directed the state government to constitute the SIT and submit a compliance report within three months.
Kusumavathi, mother of the victim had said her long-standing demand for a reinvestigation had finally been accepted.
Sowjanya, a student of SDM College in Ujire, went missing while returning home from college on October 9, 2012. Her body was found the following day in a forested area near the Nethravathi River in Dharmasthala. The postmortem confirmed that she had been sexually assaulted before being murdered.
The Supreme Court's direction came nearly 14 years after the crime. Earlier investigations by the Karnataka Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) failed to identify those responsible for the crime.
The sole accused in the case, Santhosh Rao, was acquitted by a trial court in June 2023 after spending nearly six years in custody. In 2024, Kusumavathi approached the Karnataka High Court seeking a fresh investigation but her petition was dismissed. She subsequently challenged the order before the Supreme Court.
Although the Karnataka government had initially opposed the plea, it later changed its stand and had informed the Supreme Court earlier this year that it was willing to constitute an SIT for a fresh investigation.