Vijayawada, Feb 20 (AHN) Nearly nineteen years after the rape and murder of B Pharmacy student Ayesha Meera in Vijayawada, a CBI Court on Friday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to hand over her remains to her family for performing the last rites.

The court directed that the last rites be performed as per the religious customs in Tenali on February 27. It asked the government to provide the necessary facilities and security for the last rites.

The court also directed that the entire process be video recorded in the presence of government officials.

The court accepted the final report submitted by the CBI. As part of the CBI investigation into the sensational case, a postmortem examination was conducted twice on the victim’s body.

The CBI had deposited the remains with the court after taking the opinion of the forensic experts from the government-run Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad.

Ayesha’s mother, Shamshad Begum and father, Syed Iqbal, had filed a petition in the CBI court, seeking direction to handover her remains to them. The court, while admitting their petition, issued orders to the CBI.

The CBI had submitted a report in June, declaring the probe closed.

Ayesha (17) was found murdered in her hostel bathroom on December 27, 2007, at Ibrahimpatnam near Vijayawada. Nine months later, police arrested Pidathala Satyam Babu.

The women’s sessions court, which held a hearing in the case, declared him the culprit and sentenced him to life in 2010. However, when he approached the high court, it held a hearing and acquitted him in 2017, citing a lack of evidence.

Following PILs and a petition by her parents, the court handed the case to the CBI in 2018.

However, the murder mystery remained unsolved for nearly 19 years after the ghastly crime.