Uttarakhand: Five held in gangrape of woman, minor daughter

Four of the accused are residents of Uttar Pradesh and one is from Uttarakhand, officers said.

According to officers, the girl and her mother were first sexually assaulted on Friday night by Haridwar resident Mahak Singh, who offered them a lift on his motorbike, and were again gangraped.

Singh had picked them up when they were heading to Roorkee from Kaliyar, and sexually assaulted them in a secluded area.

Singh left the spot soon after, when four people arrived in a car and abducted the woman and her daughter. These four drove off to an abandoned field where they raped both, said police. They left the woman and her daughter there before fleeing toward Manglaur.

Around an hour later, a few local residents found the two and alerted the police, who got them to a hospital, where they are undergoing treatment. The woman earns a livelihood by begging and lives in a shelter home, it is learnt.
Based on a complaint by the girl’s mother, police registered an FIR under IPC Sections 376 (Rape), 376D (Gangrape) and 363 (Kidnapping) and relevant sections of the Protection of Children against Sexual Offences Act.

Police scoured CCTV footage of the area and arrested Singh, who also goes by Sonu, Wednesday, said Roorkee Circle Officer Vivek Kumar. His motorcycle was seized.

“He said he took the women and the child to a secluded place on the pretext of giving them a lift. After he sexually assaulted them, a car reached the spot and the four people in it abducted the woman and the child. Scared by this, Sonu escaped from the spot,” said the CO.

“The car was registered in the name of Muzaffarnagar resident Rajeev, who also goes by Vicky Tomar. We soon recovered the car and arrested Rajeev, 46, along with one Subodh who was also in the car. Based on their statement we later arrested Saharanpur residents Sonu Tejiyan, 32, and Jagdish, 34, on Thursday,” he added.

A statement issued by the DGP’s office announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for the police team which identified the suspects and arrested them within six days of the incident.

Earlier, the National Commission for Women had taken suo motu cognisance of the gang-rape of the woman and her five-year-old daughter. The NCW also constituted a three-member fact-finding team to look into the matter.
The team visited the victims at the hospital and met senior police officials.