Bhubaneswar: The state government on Wednesday announced constitution of a special investigation team to probe the alleged gang-rape of a minor girl at Kunduli in Koraput district on October 10.

The victim, a Class IX student, was allegedly gang-raped by four men in uniform on her way back to school. State police had ruled out gang-rape, while the victim's family members have been insisting that she was sexually assaulted.

While a judicial inquiry and a crime branch probe were on, the victim committed suicide on January 22. The incident triggered a nation-wide uproar, which led to a probe by the National Human Rights Commission. A NHRC team is at present camping in Koraput to probe into the incident.

"Because of the extraordinary circumstances of the case after the death of the victim girl, my strong faith and conviction in the principles of natural justice and commitment to safety and dignity of women, the state government will take immediate steps for handing over the investigation of the cases to a special investigation team with a prayer to be monitored by court," said chief minister Naveen Patnaik.

"The alleged gang-rape case is an extremely tragic incident. It is my firm belief that law should take its own course and justice should be done without fear of favour."

However, the Congress and the BJP said that the SIT probe was yet another eyewash to hoodwink the people. Rejecting the SIT probe, former local Congress MP Pradip Majhi said: "It has become clear that the state government has lost its faith on judicial inquiry and has become directionless in its probe."

The BJP questioned the justifiability of the SIT probe.

BJP state general secretary Bhrigu Buxipatra said: "Who will be the part of the SIT team? The state police officials, who are the prime accused?"

"It was the director general of police and additional director general of human rights protection cell of the state police who had ruled out rape. The victim had also accused the director general of police of offering Rs 90,000 bribe to buy her silence. The forensic report was also allegedly tampered. Under these circumstances, the prime accused will conduct the probe," he said.

Finding itself on the back foot, the ruling BJD on Wednesday said that the SIT probe would facilitate delivery of proper justice to the victim.

"We wanted delivery of proper justice to the victim from day one. That's why the state government had ordered judicial and crime branch probes. Now the SIT probe would make the fact more clear as to who is the real culprit," said BJD spokesperson Rabi Narayan Nanda.

In Koraput, the five-member NHRC team continued with their investigation on Wednesday.

Divided into two teams, the officials collected information from the doctors who had treated the minor girl at the Saheed Laxman Nayak Medical College and Hospital at Koraput and another team visited the short stay home where the girl was kept by the administration after her discharge from the hospital.