43-km bus journey exposes gaps in roadside surveillance
A 43-km journey by a private sleeper bus through Greater Noida and Delhi, during which a 16-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped, has exposed glaring gaps in roadside surveillance and policing, with investigators finding just two proper checkpoints along the route, officials said.
A senior police officer privy to the investigation said the entire route, from Pari Chowk to Kashmere Gate, is being mapped to ascertain the availability of police checkpoints, barricades, CCTV cameras and other surveillance mechanisms along the 43-km stretch.
“We got to know that the first checkpoint was a few metres away from Pari Chowk. There was a police booth and heavy barricading installed along the roadside,” the officer said, requesting anonymity.
Investigators are tracking the bus’s journey through major checkpoints and intersections to determine whether it was captured by CCTV cameras, whether vehicle monitoring systems were operational and whether police personnel were deployed at critical points.
One such point was the Delhi-Noida intersection near Mayur Vihar, one of the busiest stretches along the route. Heavy barricading was installed along the roadside, but there were no police personnel present at the spot during the night, the officer said.
CCTV cameras were also missing from the traffic signals at the intersection, creating another surveillance gap on a route that the bus allegedly travelled without being stopped, he said.
Police are examining footage from cameras installed at other points to reconstruct the bus’s movement and identify any locations where it may have stopped before reaching Kashmere Gate.
The route assessment found further gaps near the destination. At Kashmere Gate, there was no barricading or checkpoint at the location where the journey ended, according to the investigation.
“In the 43-km stretch that we covered, we could trace only two proper checkpoints before reaching the final destination, Kashmere Gate,” the officer said.
The findings are significant as the bus was not operating a regular passenger service that night. According to the travel company and investigators, it had been taken to a workshop at Surajpur in Greater Noida for repairs after developing a technical fault and was later being driven towards Kashmere Gate for painting.
The route assessment has raised questions over the monitoring of vehicles travelling between the National Capital Region and Delhi, particularly at major intersections where barricading and surveillance infrastructure existed but police personnel or CCTV cameras were allegedly missing.
The girl told police that the conductor made inappropriate advances towards her after she boarded the bus and that he and the driver subsequently sexually assaulted her. She alleged that the two men threatened to kill her when she resisted.
The bus travelled nearly 43 km before the girl was abandoned near Kashmere Gate, from where she managed to reach the police station in an auto-rickshaw.
Police traced the bus with the help of CCTV footage and arrested the two accused within a few hours. The bus has been seized and a potency test conducted on the accused, officials said.
During forensic examination, strands of the girl’s hair were found inside the bus. Further forensic examination is underway.
According to Monu, manager of Vishwanath Travels, the bus did not have operational CCTV cameras as it was getting refurbished. The sleeper berths also had company-fitted curtains, which allegedly provided cover from outside.
