New Delhi, February 12
The CBI today filed its status report in a mass rape and murder case during the Gujarat riots in the Supreme Court, which had ordered probe by the agency on a petition by the lone surviving victim Bilkis Yakoob Rasool.

A CBI team filed the report in a sealed cover in the apex court registry as the matter is expected to be taken up for hearing by the court tomorrow.

This was the first riot case handed over to the CBI on the direction of the Supreme Court after Bilkis had approached it alleging that the state police had not only closed the case but tried to destroy the evidence.

Bilkis in her petition had alleged that she was subjected to gang-rape by a violent mob that had killed 14 persons, including her family members and seven other women whose modesty was also outraged, near Limkheda village in Dahod district when they were trying to flee to safety.

The CBI had recently arrested three Gujarat Police personnel, who had investigated the case, for trying to destroy the evidence after the agency had dug out five skeletons from a mass grave at the site of the incident.

The three police personnel were remanded to the CBI custody by a local court yesterday after the rejection of their bail.

Though the content of the report was not known as the CBI officials were tight-lipped, sources said that it had given details how the agency had recovered skeletons from a spot quite close to the spot.

A lot of salt was poured over the bodies, buried in the grave to ensure these were destroyed fast, the sources said.

The agency had also given details about the findings of the medical and forensic tests of the human remains, clothes and other recovered materials.