On Thursday, Delhi Police claimed that they have arrested three persons for gang raping a 34-year-old mentally ill lady, weeks after she was discovered roaming near Sarai Kale Khan on October 11, bleeding and partially clothed.
According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast) Ravi Kumar Singh, the suspects are Mohammed Shamsul alias Raju, 29, a beggar who is physically disabled due to polio, Prabhu Mahto, 28, an autorickshaw driver, and Pramod Kumar alias Babu, 32, who works at a junk dealer’s store. According to authorities, despite not knowing one another, the three chose to rape the woman because she was “visibly mentally unfit.”
Investigators said all three were arrested last week. The woman, a resident of Odisha, is currently undergoing treatment for schizophrenia at AIIMS, they said.
Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi responded to the arrests by saying, “Delhi Police have arrested three people in connection with the rape case and seized the autorickshaw used in the crime.”
Giving details of the case, Police said, On October 11, at approximately 3.15 am, a defense officer called the Sunlight Colony police station to report that he noticed a woman near Sarai Kale Khan who was partially clothed and bleeding, and he expressed concern that she might have been sexually abused.
She reportedly told the medics that three unidentified guys had raped her when the cops arrived at the scene and brought her to AIIMS. However, DCP Singh stated that she did not participate with the investigation because of her mental state.
On October 11, an investigation was launched into a case under sections 70(1) (gang rape) and 115 (causing hurt) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
According to the police’s initial review of missing persons’ data, the woman is from Puri, Odisha, and was reported missing on June 9 in her home state. She moved in with a friend in Kishangarh after arriving in Delhi on May 9, it was disclosed. But because she behaved erratically, she left the friend and began living on the streets. According to authorities, the victim did not feel comfortable disclosing specifics of her experience during the investigation. To care for the woman, police obtained special authorization from the management of the AIIMS Trauma Centre. One officer, a woman, covered as a social worker, while another, an Odisha native, covered as a nurse.
Investigators reported that the woman eventually disclosed that she had been beaten by a man who was unable to walk and an autorickshaw driver.
After that, investigators looked through footage from over 700 CCTV cameras in central, south, and north Delhi and found film of the woman leaving the Old Delhi Railway Station’s waiting area around 10:14 p.m. on October 10. Police tracked down the autorickshaw where the victim was reportedly raped after looking into her route further and using sophisticated surveillance. On October 30, Mahto, an autorickshaw driver, was taken into custody close to his home in Kotla Mubarakpur, according to the police. He ordered the arrest of Shamsul, a Gandhi Nagar resident, on November 4 and Kumar, a Narela resident, on November 2.
When questioned by authorities, Kumar said that he and Shamsul were drunk at the time of the incident and that they had decided to sexually assault the woman because she was “visibly mentally unfit” after spotting her sitting on the side of the road at midnight. Police claimed that Mahto, who was driving his autorickshaw across the area at the time, witnessed the two raping the woman and, instead of sounding the alarm, joined in. After forcing her into his autorickshaw and driving her to Sarai Kale Khan, police claimed, Mahto parked the car by the side of the road, raped her once more, dumped her on the street, and ran away.
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