Overview
- The state government formed a five-member Special Investigation Team on September 24 after the Supreme Court ordered a reinvestigation of the 2012 Dharmasthala gang rape and murder.
- Two senior SIT officers, Intelligence SP Nisha James and CID SP Lokesh Jagalsar, arrived in Mangaluru on Thursday to meet Mangaluru City Police Commissioner C.H. Sudheer Kumar Reddy and plan the fresh probe.
- The SIT is headed by IGP N. Shashikumar and also includes Commissioner Sudheer Kumar Reddy and Bengaluru Rural ASP Venkatesh Prasanna, who has formally asked to be relieved from the team after objections from activists and the victim’s family.
- The team has a three-month court-ordered window to complete the reinvestigation and submit a report to the competent court, and it will operate from a separate office to coordinate field work.
- Earlier probes by the state CID and the CBI ended with the court acquittal of the main accused, a history that has driven public skepticism and made the SIT’s composition and impartiality central to hopes for credible closure.