Meanwhile, people in Gandhinagar have called for a bandh on Thursday and have planned a rally to protest against police inability to make a headway in the case.

Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya said that the decision to transfer the probe to the CBI was taken in consultation with Union Home Minister L.K. Advani and Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel. He said it was necessary to shift the case in order to ensure free and fair investigations.

On Tuesday night, police charged Daksha Shukla, Gumansinh Sisodia, and Bharatbhai Jadeja with the killing of Nilesh Jadeja, the prime accused in the case. On the basis of a bloodstained Maruti van found abandoned in Khambhat, police suspect Nilesh might have been done away.

Police sought remand of the accused on this count as their remand period expired on Wednesday. However, the court turned down the plea and instead remanded the three in judicial custody. About 3 a.m. on Wednesday, Shukla's lawyer had complained to the magistrate that police was subjecting her to the third degree. The magistrate issued notice to DSP R.S. Yadav, Inspector R. Rao, and DySP Maurya.

Daksha and the others in police custody were sent to the Sabarmati Central Jail. Shukla's adopted son Kunal, too, was on Tuesday night remanded in judicial custody, turning down the police plea for keeping him in their custody.Suresh Bhatt, the priest who performed the Randal Ma pooja at Shukla's house on April 6, stated before the magistrate that the pooja began at 9 a.m. and at 9:20 a.m. Shukla had left the house. She was out for three or four hours. He said she did not seem interested in the pooja. Bhatt said Shukla had told him she was ill and had gone to the doctor. However, police later said that she had given a statement that she had gone to a juice centre.

Gandhinagar district superintendent of police R.S. Yadav had announced in the morning that a girl with features resembling Ruchi's had been found in Madurai. The Gandhinagar police had received a fax message from the Madurai superintendent of police Sanjay Nag that a three-year-old girl had been found from near the Madurai temple.

A photograph of Ruchi has been faxed to Madurai for tallying. An Indian Express reporter of Madurai, Vijay Kumar, had been scanning agency reports on Tuesday when he saw a report about Ruchi. Suspecting a link between a local murder and a little girl who was found with the murder victim, he brought the matter to the notice of Nag, who in turn got in touch with the police control room in Ahmedabad.

Vijay Kumar told the Ahmedabad office of Indian Express on Wednesday that on April 9 a couple with a nearly four-year-old girl was going to the temple on the Triparankundram Hill in Madurai. The couple had taken a way which was not used by devotees. Kumar said that the man attacked the woman and killed her on the spot, while he also made an attempt to hit the girl and then strangle her. But a washerman who saw this started shouting and people gathered. The man fled the scene.

The girl is in the intensive care unit of the government hospital in Madurai. She is said to have a temporary memory loss from an injury on her head. However, when Ruchi's photograph was shown to her, she had shouted that it was her photograph.