rapes had taken place at Murthal during the Jat quota protests

alleged rioters

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court observed on Thursday that the statements of some witnesses and the recovery of women's undergarments indicate thatin February 2016.The court asked the state police special investigation team to find the culprits to instill confidence in the public.A division bench made these observations in open court. The judges also observed that two witnesses, one of them a taxi driver, had said that women were dragged out of their vehicles, which indicated that rapes had taken place.The HC has stayed the framing of charges in the rape case being heard in a trial court in Sonipat. Haryana Police filed an FIR after the HC took suo motu cognisance of newspaper reports.Police had accused fiveof rape, but the charge was dropped as their blood did not match semen samples from the undergarments.The HC also asked the SIT to file an affidavit before the trial court that rape charges hadn't been dropped and were still under investigation. The observations came af ter senior advocate and amicus curiae in the case, Anupam Gupta, accused the SIT of working in lack of good faith and in an unprofessional manner.He alleged had the Sonipat trial judge not informed the high court about rape charges being dropped against the five accused, the SIT would have closed the case much earlier. Gupta also opposed the SIT's efforts to record the statement of one of the witnesses, Raj Kumar, before the trial court under CrPC Section 164.He said the SIT was acting as the defence in the case and making deliberate attempts to drop rape charges in the case. He asked the court to hand the case to CBI.At this, the bench asked the CBI counsel to inform it whether the agency was ready to probe the case. The CBI counsel said though the agency was overburdened, it would follow the directions of the court.The counsel for the state government, however, informed the court that the SIT was still probing the case and trying to find the victims and the accused.The case will come up for hearing on February 28