In 2012, a 17-year-old college student was found dead in Karnataka’s temple town Dharmasthala.
Sowjanya had gone missing the previous day.
She was raped and murdered while on her way home. And she was found dead just 300 m from her home.
In the days that followed …Thousands of protesters took to the streets.
It's been almost 13 years since Sowjanya's murder, but the man or men who killed her- have never been convicted.
The Sowjanya case is back in focus after a Youtuber Sameer MD took it up. His video got millions of views and the protests have started again.
But the issues here run deeper.
Other than just asking if Sowjanya’s killer will ever be found,
We need to ask another important question
Have the policemen who destroyed the Sowjanya case been punished?
From Andhra to Telangana to Kerala, we've seen similar stories play out over and over.
Cops rarely face any consequences for botching investigations- deliberately or otherwise
In the Sowjanya case- two cops were primarily responsible for botching it up. Even the court wanted action against them.
Who are these cops? How was the case destroyed? Let me explain
Before we dive into the details, it’s important to note that even today, Sowjanya’s case is heavily censored.
Sameer MD was booked just for publishing a video about it. In Bengaluru, a protest meeting organized by writers was denied permission.
Two years ago, a powerful report that we did on the case was removed from YouTube.
My colleagues Shivani and Bhuvan had traveled to Dharmasthala. They exposed how the police manipulated evidence, tampered with medical reports, and derailed the case.
We are facing legal cases over it, we continue to get more notices to this day
And we say, bring them on.
Because intimidation will not stop us from telling Sowjanya’s story
And this is where I come to you, help us tell these stories, help us fight these cases.
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If you're not familiar with Sowjanya’s case, let me quickly recap.
On October 9, 2012, Sowjanya – a second PU student, got off the bus and started walking home. But she never made it back.
Her family started searching for her.
Try thinking like a detective: Someone goes missing in your town. You start from where they were last found. Right? Look for CCTV cameras, try to trace the missing person.
But not in this case. Just down the road from the bus stop where Sowjanya got off, there was a CCTV camera. But the cops, led by Sub Inspector Yogesh Naik, didn’t bother to collect the footage.
As soon as Sowjanya’s body was found the next day, hundreds gathered at the spot.
Here too the cops bungled. They did not do enough to secure the area.
The crime scene was not professionally videotaped. The surroundings weren’t closely examined.
There was a paper chit found near her, that wasn’t taken for examination.
These are all things that the court also took note of
The victim’s body will have several crucial pieces of evidence. And post mortems help uncover those.
But Sowjanya’s post mortem was done in a dimly lit room. Crucial evidence was not properly collected or preserved. Her internal organs were not sent for examination.
Things were actually more sinister that that
Sowjanya’s underwear was not found on the crime spot or on her body.
Her mother told us that two days after her body was found, cops collected clothes from their house. This included the innerwear. The cops said they needed it for ‘verification’.
A man named Santhosh Rao was caught by three men in the locality - Malik Jain, Udaya Jain, and Dheeraj Jain.
They handed him over to the police and said he could have been Sowjanya’s murderer
The police did a search. Then they said they recovered Sowjanya’s undergarments from Santhosh.
Her family says this was a blatant lie. The garment was, in fact, the same one the police collected from their house. How did the family know for certain? Her mother had put a stitch on it before handing it over to the cops.
The family believed the three men- Malik Jain, Udaya Jain, and Dheeraj Jain- could have been behind the murder. They were linked to a powerful man in Dakshina Kannada district.
But these three men were never properly investigated.
The case against Santhosh relied on three things:
His confession,
The recovery of her clothes
and injury marks on him.
But the court found that none of these were foolproof or enough to implicate Santosh Rao.
The injury marks for example- the police claimed it was because Sowjanya would have resisted the attack.
But the court felt the injuries were sustained when the Jains beat up Santosh
Also Santosh’s DNA was not found on Sowjanya's hands or nails. The police made up theories that she attacked him, without any forensic evidence.
The case against Santosh did not stand in court, and he was acquitted in 2023.
So who killed Sowjanya?
No one found the answer.
Neither the CID or the CBI.
Sowjanya’s was a case set up to fail.
The court wanted action against the erring cops. And asked for it.
But till today, no action SEEMS to have been taken against them.
The Police Act says that an officer convicted for neglect of duty can be penalised.They can also be booked under various sections of the IPC or the BNS
If you give false evidence, you could be put in jail for a maximum of seven years and be fined.
A police officer who tampers or conceals evidence can be booked as well
So one would expect the cops who botched up Sowjanya’s case to face consequences. No.
Circle Inspector Bhaskar Rai was promoted to DySP rank.
Sub Inspector Yogesh was transferred from Belthangady. When he was posted in Bengaluru later, Yogesh was allegedly involved in a kidnapping case, and was even suspended.
Basically, no action for everything he did wrong in the Sowjanya case.
Sowjanya’s is not the first such case. Doesn’t look like it will be the last.
In 2017, a minor was found dead in her school hostel in Andhra’s Kurnool. Geeta’s (name changed) death was framed as a suicide despite clear signs of sexual assault. The crime scene and the injuries on her body made this apparent. Yet, crucial evidence was not collected from the scene.
Key evidence was ignored. —CCTV footage from her room went "missing," forensic samples were mishandled.
The case was finally handed over to the CBI, and recently the agency told court that they do not have the resources to probe the case.
And the cops who deliberately mishandled the case will face no consequences.
Take the case of Ayesha Meera. She died 10 years before Geeta, in her hostel in Vijayawada. She was just 19, a pharmacy student, when she was brutally attacked, raped, and murdered.
Once again, the crime scene wasn’t secured. Evidence was compromised. Forensic results became unreliable. The case was as good as dead within the first 48 hours.
All signs pointed to two men with Congress connections—Koneru Sateesh, grandson of a minister, and Congress leader C. Madhav Rao.
But the cops pinned the blame on Satyam Babu. He was already in custody for a phone theft.
Babu had a neurological disorder that made movement difficult. Could he really have climbed a hostel wall, sneaked upstairs, opened the gate, raped and murdered Ayesha—without anyone hearing a thing?
He was convicted by the trial court, but the HC overturned the verdict.
Satyam Babu’s name was cleared, but Ayesha’s killer walked away free.
Kerala’s Walayar case highlights extreme police incompetence in handling child sexual violence.
In Walayar, two minor sisters were raped and murdered within 52 days. All suspects were acquitted as the prosecution failed to prove the case. The Kerala HC later overturned the verdict, calling out the police’s incompetence.
Not a single cop in these cases has faced real consequences. At most, high courts overturned trial court rulings and issued mild reprimands.
The victims- mostly from marginalised communities- were up against powerful people.
Botched investigations aren’t just a problem in rape and murder cases—they’re an issue across the board.
When a crime is reported, the local police station handles it first, usually under an SI or CI. But as the Kerala HC pointed out in the Walayar case, many officers lack basic forensic knowledge and don’t secure evidence properly.
Cops need better legal training.
But mere education won’t fix the issue.
So, what’s the solution?
The Law Commission has suggested specialized crime investigation units that aren’t pulled into other duties.
The Supreme Court recommended separating investigation from law enforcement
For victims of police misconduct, there are three options:
1. File a legal case against the officer.
2. Approach the police complaints authority.
3. Take it to the state/national human rights commission.
When a police investigation goes wrong, it is not a minor mistake without repercussions. It is a massive injustice done to victims and their families. It steals the lives of the innocents who are made scapegoats. And it lets the guilty walk free.
Botched up investigations undermine the very idea of justice.
And that will be the case until systemic issues are addressed, until cops are held accountable for their incompetence and misconduct.
The News Minute and News Laundry have decided that police excesses need to be documented in detail. We have launched a reporting series called The Impunity of India’s police.
We will track cases of police excesses—corruption, evidence tampering, caste discrimination, and illegal surveillance.
Our teams will be on the ground speaking to people, and exposing the failures in Indian law enforcement.
If you believe in this kind of journalism—one that speaks for you and tells the tough stories— contribute to the reporting projects so our journalists can travel, investigate, and bring you more stories that matter.
For suggestions and feedbacks write to pooja@thenewsminute.com
Produced by Megha Mukundan, edited by Nikhil Sekhar, research by Shivani Kava and Maria Teresa Raju
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