Teen Gang-Rape Case: Two Accused Arrested

The Hyderabad police on Saturday arrested two juveniles accused in the alleged gang-rape of a 17-year-old girl in the Jubilee Hills area on May 28.

According to the police, the two accused were taken into custody in Karnataka on Saturday.

The police had previously arrested another accused, Saduddin Malik (18), a resident of Puppalaguda in Manikonda, in connection with the case. A total of five accused involved in the crime have been identified so far.

The accused had allegedly sexually assaulted the survivor in an Innova on the evening of May 28 after promising to drop her home from a pub in Jubilee Hills where the survivor and the accused had attended a party.

The police official refused to reveal the location where the offence took place saying that that could reveal the identity of the survivor. He however said that the accused had left in a car from the pub and stopped at a pastry shop enroute. There they left the car and boarded another vehicle.

While the car has been seized by the police, there was no word about the Innova.

The police investigation revealed that after committing the crime, the accused dropped the survivor back near the pub. She called her father, who picked her up but suspected that something untoward had happened to her as there were bruises on her neck.

Thereupon, on May 31, the survivor's father approached the police saying his daughter had gone to a day-time non-alcoholic party and that he suspected that molestation might have taken place there. He told police that the girl was in a state of shock and not able to speak.

Based on the complaint, the police registered a case under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Sections 9 and 10 of Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and started investigation. As per the Standard Operating Procedure, the day after counselling the girl, the police sent her to a Bharosa centre where lady officials made her comfortable and gave her confidence.

It was only the next day that she revealed to the lady officials what happened and gave her statement, the police said.

Based on the survivor's statement, the police altered the case to Section 376 D of the IPC and Sections 5 and 6 of the POCSO Act, and since there were bruises on her, Section 323 of the IPC was also added.

Upon the direction of the Police Commissioner, various teams were constituted which started collecting details.

"The survivor was not in a position to reveal the identities of the accused as they were not known to her earlier. Based on CCTV footage and other technical evidence, and corroborations with the survivor's statement, we identified five accused, two of them major and three aged 16-17," the police said.

There have been allegations by leaders of the BJP that the grandson of the State Home Minister and the son of an MIM MLA were also involved.

The police termed as "100% baseless" the allegations about the Home Minister's grandson. They also said that neither the survivor's statement nor the other evidence gathered so far showed that any MLA's son was involved.

The police, however, said that investigations were on, and that once the survivor was in a position to give a detailed statement and if something came out during the investigation about the involvement of others, action would be taken accordingly.