The hunt for the alleged culprits behind the gang-rape of a Mumbai-based photojournalist ended on Sunday after the Mumbai crime branch sleuths arrested the fifth and the last accused from New Delhi. Now investigators are grilling the arrested accused to find the mobile phone used by them to click the pictures of the crime scene.
Hours after the third accused, Siraj Rehman (25) was arrested on Saturday night from Govandi in north-east Mumbai, when he was about to flee the metropolis, the police took into custody the fourth accused, Mohammed Kasim Hafiz Shaikh, alias Kasim Bengali (21), a resident of Agripada, from Mahalaxmi in south-central Mumbai on Sunday around 4 am.
Both Siraj and Kasim Bengali were produced before a city court, which remanded them in police custody till August 30. The first two arrested accused — Chand Babu Sattar Shaikh, alias Mohammed Abdul, and Vijay Mohan Jadhav — had earlier been remanded in police custody till August 30.
Acting on tip-off that the last of the accused had fled to New Delhi, a visiting team of crime branch sleuths nabbed Salim Mohammad Ansari at Bharat Nagar in Delhi on Sunday around 11 am, while he was on his way to a relative’s house.
“The Mumbai Police reached Bharat Nagar police station around 9:30 am today (Sunday). They informed the police staff at the police station about the movements of the accused and a relative’s place, he was heading to. The police officials cooperated and officers of the police station along with the Mumbai police reached the location,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-West district) Gnana Sambhadhana.
Salim was arrested when he was getting down from the bus at Agrasen Public colony bus stop in Bharat Nagar in Delhi, the DCP added. He was later taken to Babu Jagjivan Ram memorial hospital for medical examination and then produced at Rohini Court which granted the Mumbai Police 48-hour remand of Salim.
All the five accused have been booked under various sections of IPC such as 376(D) (rape), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506(2) (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention).
The victim girl, an intern photo journalist working for a Mumbai events listing magazine, was allegedly gang-raped on Thursday evening by five young in the cover of tall grass and shrubs surrounding the dilapidated remains of the defunct Shakti Mills at Mahalaxmi in south-central Mumbai, where she had gone along with her male colleague to take pictures for a magazine story.
Meanwhile, a medical bulletin issued by the Jaslok Hospital, where the 22-year-old victim girl is recuperating, said that her condition was steadily improving and a team of doctors was continuously monitoring her.
In a statement issued to “members of the print and television media of Mumbai and the nation at large” through the Chief Minister’s office, the family of the victim girl hoped that a “severest of punishment” would be meted out to the accused to ensure that “even the most sick-minded” think twice before they act in such an inhuman and insensitive way”.
On his part, chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said that the gang-rape case trial would be fast-tracked. “Apart from committing the case to a fast track court, we are asking Special Public Prosecutor Ujwal Nikam to handle the case,” Chavan said.
Earlier in the day, the police told a city court that Kasim Bengali, said to be the main accused behind the gang rape, was not cooperating with investigators. They told the court that he was not giving any information about the whereabouts of a mobile phone that they used to take photographs of the victim girl at the crime scene.
While talking to Nirmala Sawant-Prabhavalkar, Chairperson of the Maharashtra State Women’s Commission (MSWC) at the Jaslok Hospital, the victim had apprehended that the images clicked by the accused during the dastardly act could be misused - a thing that would ruin her life.