Hyderabad police on Saturday arrested three accused in the alleged gang- rape of a 17 years-old girl in the Jubilee Hills area on May 28.
With this, all the five involved in the case were arrested. Earlier, police arrested another two accused in connection with the case. A total of five accused involved in the crime were identified sofar.
According to police, three accused were taken into custody.
The accused sexually assaulted the victim in an Innova vehicle on the evening of May 28 after promising to drop her home from a pub in Jubilee Hills where the victim and the accused attended a party.
The police official refused to reveal the location where the offence took place saying this would reveal the identity of the victim. Police however, said the accused left in a car from the pub and stopped at a pastry shop enroute. There they left the car and boarded another vehicle.
While the car has been seized by the police, there was no word about the Innova vehicle.
The police investigation revealed that after committing the crime, the accused dropped the victim back near the pub. She called her father, who picked her up but suspected something untoward happened to her as there were bruises on her neck.
On May 31, the victim’s father approached the police saying his daughter went to a day-time non-alcoholic party and suspected that molestation might have taken place there. He told police that the girl is in a state of shock and is not able to speak.
Based on the complaint, police registered a case under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections 9 and 10 of Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and started investigation. As per the Standard Operating Procedure, the next day after counseling the victim child, police sent her to Bharosa Centre where lady officials made her comfortable and gave her confidence.
It was only the next day she revealed to lady officials what happened and gave her statement, police said.
Based on the victim’s statement, police altered the case to section 376 D of IPC and section 5 and 6 of POCSO Act and since there were bruises on the victim, Section 323 of IPC was also added.
On the direction of the City Police Commissioner, various teams were constituted which started collecting details. “The victim was not in a position to reveal the identity of the accused as they were not known to her earlier. Based on CCTV footage and other technical evidence and CCTV and after it was corroborated with the victim’s statement we identified five accused, two of them major and three aged 16-17,” police said.
There have been allegations by leaders of the opposition BJP that the grandson of a Minister and son of an MLA were also involved.
The police termed as ‘100 percent baseless’ the allegations about the Minister’s grandson. They also said neither the victim’s statement nor other evidence gathered so far shows that an MLA’s son was involved.
The police, however, said the investigations were on and once the victim is in a position to give a detailed statement and if something comes out during the investigation about the involvement of others action will be taken accordingly.
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