In a major breakthrough in the heinous Gurugram rape and murder case, Gurugram Police — formerly Gurgaon Police — have arrested all the three men accused of gangraping a 23-year-old woman after throwing her nine-month old daughter off an auto-rickshaw on May 29.
While two of the accused, who have been identified as Yoginder and Amit, were arrested from Gurugram on Wednesday (June 7), the third accused, who had been absconding, was nabbed from Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday morning.
The third accused who has been identified as Jaikesh was one of the co-passengers in the auto-rickshaw.
All of the three accused hail from Bulandshahr and had moved to Bas Kusla village in Manesar two months ago.
How did the police go about with the case
According to the Hindustan Times, one of the accused, who was apprehended on Wednesday, had allegedly confessed to the crime to the sarpanch of Bas Kusla village. The sarpanch, Jitender Chauhan, immediately called ACP Dharamvir Singh who is in charge of the Special Investigation Team constituted by the Gurgaon police to look into the case. "The police came within 15 minutes and the accused admitted that he had committed the heinous crime along with his two friends," Chauhan said.
However, Police Commissioner Sandeep Khirwar has admitted to lapses on part of the police in acting on the victim's complaint and said one woman sub-inspector was suspended for negligence. "There may have been some laxity or lapse in adding the charges of rape to the case," Khirwar was quoted by PTI. "We are taking action against the officials."
What did the accused confess
Sarpanch Chauhan has said that the accused confessed that he and his friends had picked up the woman near IMT Manesar Chowk. After buying food worth Rs 180 from a hotel in Manesar, they went up to Kherki Daula toll and took a turn back to Manesar where they raped the woman at an empty plot in sector 8.
What did the victim say in the FIR
The agony of the victim was evident from the fact that she carried the baby's body in the metro to meet two doctors who confirmed that the infant had succumbed to injuries. However, the FIR that was lodged at the Manesar police station has not only thrown up contradictory information but has further highlighted the victims's pain.
Though initial reports claimed that the victim was a 23-year-old woman, The Times of India has quoted the FIR as saying that the woman was 19 years old.
The FIR also contradicted reports which said that the accused had allegedly thrown the baby out of the auto.
On the night of May 29, the victim first took a lift from a truck driver on NH8 but got off the vehicle when the driver started harassing her. She then waved down a shared auto that was heading towards Gurugram. There were two men in the passenger seats. Soon the driver took a U-turn on the highway, before Kherki Daula toll plaza. It was then that the two men in the back seat started harassing her. When the baby started to cry, it made them even more violent.
After buying food from a small hotel in Manesar (which the accused had also confessed), the trio took the women to IMT sector 8. They dragged her out of the auto and snatched away her daughter from her. One of them covered the baby's mouth with his palm to stop her from wailing.
The men then took turns to rape her. Each time, one person held the baby. When they were ready to leave, one of the men threw the infant at the concrete median verge of the road. "I became numb from that point. All I remember is seeing my child's head hitting the road divider," the FIR says, quoting the 19-year-old.
The woman then walked down the road and reached a factory, Pencil Electro Ltd, where a guard had asked her to wait till dawn and then escorted her to an auto that took her to Khandsa Road, where her in-laws lived.
The incident comes a month after a 23-year-old woman was brutally gangraped and murdered by at least seven men in Haryana's Rohtak district.
