Bhubaneswar, Jan 27: In a major development, a day after the arrest of the accused in the rape of a 5-year-old girl in Puri town, the district police have decided to accord ‘Red Flag’ tag to the case.
“We are taking the case with all seriousness and it will be tagged as a ‘Red Flag’ case after a discussion with the Crime Branch,” said Puri SP Kanwar Vishal Singh on Thursday.
“The charge sheet will be filed within 20 days. The police are in touch with the court and we will request for speedy trial after submitting the charge sheet. If required, the accused will be taken in remand,” said Singh.
As per reports, the accused, identified as Mahesh Mohanty, was nabbed from Kurki area near Pipili on the outskirts of Puri on Wednesday following all out searches conducted by the Town police. Mohanty hails from Jagatsinghpur and he is a driver by profession. He has criminal antecedents.
As many as four teams were formed to trace and arrest the accused after the complaint was lodged. A lookout circular (LOC) was issued against him.
“The arrest of the accused was possible due to the hard efforts put in by the teams. The accused will be forwarded to court today following a medical test,” said Singh.
Notably, the accused, is well known to the family of the victim. On January 23 he reportedly took the girl, while she was playing near her house, to the rooftop and raped her at around 11 am.
Though crime under murder, rape, gang rape etc are being treated as special report, the State Crime Branch decided in 2014 to identify the sensational cases of crime against women as ‘Red Flag’ case. Any case which is identified as ‘Red Flag’ will require immediate and utmost attention of all concerned and has to be dealt on top priority.
