Behind the Supreme Court verdict in the Nirbhaya gangrape case upholding the death sentenced for the four convicts, lies the remarkable investigation done by a Delhi Police team.
Investigations under the supervision of then DCP (South) Chhaya Sharma and the Investigating Officer (IO) of the case Inspector Anil Sharma (the then SHO of Vasant Vihar police station) were applauded by the court at all stages.
“We had done our job on time. At every stage of the investigation, which was completed early, we stood beside the family of Nirbhaya. After the judgement passed today, we all were so happy that we hugged Nirbhaya’s parents in a moment of relief. I had solved many cases yet this is one of those rare cases where I felt content,” said Anil Sharma. He now works as the Station House Officer of the Kirti Nagar police station.
With the first chargesheet filed, under a record time of 18 days, the South district police assigned to solve the sensational blind case had within 17 hours of the incident managed to identify the ‘white bus’ in which the crime was committed.
Talking to The Pioneer, Chhaya Sharma, who now heads the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) as Inspector-General (Investigation), said, “Within the first 17 hours of the incident, we had prepared a list of 370 white buses which were registered with the Transport Department. Six teams were working simultaneously to crack the case. While one team scanned the CCTV footages of the crime scene, the second team was assigned the task to search the white bus, sift through the spot. A third team was looking after the scientific evidence, the fourth team looked after the family of the victim, fifth team was bestowed with the identification of the accused. Finding the accused was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Over 60 police personnel were involved in the investigation that bordered on scientific and forensic aspects of the case.”
Sharma said, "It was one of the toughest cases, yet, through the use of the best technological and scientific methods, we submitted a watertight chargesheet to the court.”