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Bhubaneswar: Saroj Sethi, the prime accused in the sensational abduction and murder of a five-year-old girl in Nayagarh, is likely to undergo narco analysis test.
According to sources, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the murder case on Monday filed a petition in a POCSO court in Nayagarh seeking permission to conduct the narco analysis test on the accused. The court will take up the petition for hearing tomorrow.
On the other hand, Sethi's lawyer has appealed to the court to treat him as a juvenile and furnished his Class X and birth certificate as proof of his age. The hearing of the petition will also be held tomorrow.
Earlier on December 28, family members of accused Saroj Sethi had claimed that he is a minor and threatened to move the court seeking intervention in the matter.
Chandra Bijayee Mishra, lawyer of the accused, had said that his client should be treated as a minor and produced in the juvenile court.
“As per Saroj’s High School certificate, his date of birth is February 6, 2003. It means, he was 17 years five months and eight days old on the day of occurrence of the crime,” Mishra had said.
As per reports, Saroj was earlier subjected to bone ossification test which revealed that he is above 18 years of age. The POCSO court in Nayagarh had reportedly remanded the accused to three-day police custody for interrogation based on the ossification test report.
The Orissa High Court deferred the hearing on the petitions seeking a CBI probe into the kidnapping and murder case to January 11.
A division bench of Justice B R Sarangi and Justice Pramath Patnaik adjourned the hearing on two PILs after the SIT chief submitted a status report on the investigation into the case.
The Odisha government had ordered a High Court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigation keeping in view the gravity of the case and the failure by the police to make any headway even months after the incident.
(Edited By Ramakanta Biswas)
