ROORKEE: Police on Thursday arrested five men allegedly involved in the gang-rape of a 30-year-old woman and her six-year-old daughter in Roorkee on June 24. The men had allegedly raped the duo after offering them a lift while they were on their way home to Piran Kaliyar late in the evening.
Haridwar SSP Yogender Singh Rawat held a press conference on Thursday, in which he described the sequence of events.
While returning, the woman was offered a lift by one Sonu, an acquaintance, on his bike.
'Questioned 200 men, scanned 250 CCTVs to arrest accused'
The accused took the two to a deserted point along the Gangnahar canal and raped the mother. This is when four men in a car reached there, engaged in an altercation with Sonu, and forced the woman and daughter inside their car.
The accused men drove to a sugarcane field, along the Roorkee-Manglaur bypass highway, where they raped the mother.
The accused raped the daughter inside the car and left the two on the road.
The women raised an alarm, after which locals informed the police, who brought the two to a civil hospital for treatment around 11.30 pm.
"We examined footage of more than 250 CCTVs and questioned over 200 people in connection with the case. We have arrested all five men involved in the crime and have recovered their vehicles, including the car used by the criminals," said Haridwar SSP Rawat while parading the culprits before media persons at the Civil Lines police station.
The accused were identified as Mahak Singh alias Sonu (32), Vicky Tomar (46), Subodh Kakran (30), Sonu Tejiyan (32), and Jagdish Phool Singh (34).
Cops on June 25 had considered this a Pocso crime only, assuming that only the minor was raped.
"We had immediately registered the case on the intervening night of June 24 and 25 on the verbal complaint of the woman. At that time she was very terrified due to the incident so we could register the case only under those sections of laws that we found appropriate after her first-hand narration. As the investigation progressed in the case, we added more sections of IPC including gang-rape in the FIR," said Rawat.(The victims' identity has not been revealed to protect their privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)
