Vadodara: Police junk allegations of honey-trap by victim

VADODARA: The crime branch which is now investigating the rape case of a law student questioned over two dozen people on Saturday. The case is getting murkier by the day as more details from the complainant as well as from the accused are coming out in public.
Police officials said that a detailed statement of the rape survivor was recorded. The police have also questioned the owner of the apartment where she was staying in at Diwalipura, employees of the accused chartered accountant Ashok Jain, his relatives, owner of a hotel in Alkapuri and other witnesses.
Cops also said that a luxurious car and another suspicious car in which the accused had taken the woman were also seized. “A separate team has also been formed to nab the bootlegger Alpesh Wadhwani alias Alpu Sindhi in connection with a prohibition case. We want to question him regarding this case too,” said ACP D S Chauhan.
Senior police officials said that they are leaving no stone unturned to nab Jain and co-accused Raju Bhatt as teams have been searching for them in Gujarat and outside the state too. Police have also initiated a process to get arrest warrants under section 70 of CrPC from the court and attach the properties of the two accused.
Meanwhile, sources close to Jain claimed that there is no truth in the complaint filed by the woman. To substantiate their claims, the sources close to Jain are showing screenshots of an alleged WhatsApp chat between Jain and the woman. The chat shows that there were cordial relations between the accused and the complainant until September 16.
Her alleged last message to Jain on September 16 was about thanking him and informing him that she was leaving for her hometown the next day. The source also stated that the injuries which according to the woman were caused by Jain and Bhatt were actually caused by Sindhi on the night of September 14.
They claim that the next day the woman had called Jain during the early hours to inform him about the incident.
“If Alpu Sindhi gets nabbed and they are cross-interrogated the reality will come to the fore,” the source said. It is alleged that the original intention was to extort money from the two accused but when things did not turn out as planned, Sindhi asked the woman to lodge a case against Jain and Bhatt.
But police are not buying this theory. “Whatever the woman has said is true and our teams are probing to gather as much evidence as possible. If the accused are saying that they had been honey-trapped then why did they not approach police and give evidence,” said a senior police official.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme Court directives on cases related to sexual assault)