Cops in dark despite multi-pronged effort to trace Bopdev Ghat gang rape suspects

Pune: About 400 police personnel's multipronged efforts, human and technical intelligence, and annoncement of Rs10-lakh reward for giving any information regarding suspects failed to yield any result in Bopdev Ghat gang-rape case, more than four days after the crime.
"After the release of sketches of two suspects and announcement of the reward, we received more than 100 calls from people claiming to have spotted them, but none of the callers could give us any concrete information that could lead us to the culprits," deputy commissioner of police (Zone V) R Raja told TOI on Tuesday.
The report on CCTV footage sent for assessment by the Nagpur police's AI-powered tool, "SIMBA" (System for Intelligent Monitoring, Behavioural Analysis), is awaited. The Pune city police also sought help of an AI-powered tool after the event management student, hailing from a city in Gujarat, was gang-raped at Bopdev Ghat last Thursday midnight. The AI (artificial intelligence) tool featured Crime GPT.
"Our investigators scanned dumb data of the area where the crime occurred, besides examining CCTV footage and questioning known offenders in rape/molestation cases regarding their whereabouts at the time of the incident and other aspects. The questioning led us to some suspicious names. We are tracing these individuals. But no concrete information has emerged yet," Raja said.
The 60 police teams formed to detect the gang rape case were assigned the task to analyse CCTV footage, gather information from informers and sources, conduct technical investigations, check records of criminals involved in serious crimes in the past five years, monitor criminals at police station-level, collect human intelligence and increase communication with the public, among other things, to get vital information, he added.
Joint commissioner of police Ranjan Kumar Sharma said, "Our teams verified all possible angles to make a breakthrough but till now, no concrete evidence has emerged."
Another officer from the Kondhwa police said, "We barricaded the spot to preserve the crime scene. In addition, drones would be used for mapping crimes related to theft, robbery and dacoity reported in the ghat section in the past few years to get an eagle view of the hillock."
He said, "We are creating awareness among residents of the area and visitors about not visiting the Bopdev Ghat late in the evening as a precautionary measure. We would be displaying cellphone numbers of police personnel on signboards at strategic locations for the public at large. As of now, cellphone numbers are displayed on the police help centre kiosk."