A day after Manoj, arrested for raping the five-year-old girl, was brought to Delhi from Muzaffarpur, a city court on Sunday remanded him in judicial custody till May 4. Further, based on disclosures, the police have been begun a massive hunt to nab his friend Pradeep, whose name has surfaced in connection with the horrendous crime.
A Delhi Police team has been dispatched to Bihar and there are raids in Darbhanga, Bihar and Ghaziabad to trace the absconding friend. According to the police, Pradeep hailed from Darbhanga district and worked in a garment factory in Delhi.
Meanwhile, Manoj was held for 14 days to facilitate test identification parade, after he was produced in a city court by Delhi Police a day before expiry of his transit remand.
On sustained interrogation, Manoj said the rape was committed by his friend Pradeep and that though he was present in the room, he did not rape the girl. “Manoj said they had a weekly off last Monday and in the evening, Pradeep came to his room. They drunk a bit too much and later, Pradeep asked him to accompany him in finding a sex worker to satiate his lust. They had also watched a porn video clip on their cellphone,” said a police source.
Manoj also told the investigators that he allegedly kidnap the five-year-old daughter of his neighbour with the intent to rape her. He took her in his room on the pretext of giving her a chocolate where his associate, Pradeep allegedly raped her. “She was brutally raped and assaulted allegedly by Pradeep. He had forcibly inserted a candle and a 200 ml hair oil bottle inside her body, following that she suffered multiple injuries in her private parts and her internal organs were damaged. With the fear of arrest, he strangulated her,” police sources added.
In the evening, a senior police official said they were probing whether the second suspect is involved in the rape or whether he helped Kumar in fleeing the capital on April 15 soon after the rape. The girl was locked in his ground floor rented accommodation in east Delhi’s Gandhi Nagar by her neighbour Kumar (22) on April 15 and brutally raped her before fleeing thinking that the girl is dead.
Earlier in the day, police announced that they will produce Kumar, who was arrested from his in-laws’ house in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur, in court on Sunday before the expiry of transit remand granted by a Bihar court. On its change of mind on producing the accused in a court, the police official said it was done in fairness of investigations. “The decision was changed within hours as investigators felt that the delay in production of the accused may go in his favour while pressing for a test identification parade. Investigators feared that he could claim that he was paraded before those who will attend the TIP which could hamper their plans,” the sources added.