HYDERABAD: The city police have included the charge of gang rape against five boys belonging to influential political families after they were initially accused of molesting a 17-year-old girl in a moving car. The addition was made on Wednesday night after the survivor gave a statement to the police alleging gang rape. Of the five accused, three are minors and two are 18-year-olds.
On Friday, officials said they have arrested one of accused who is 18. They have identified the minors but not arrested them as the law does not allow their arrest after sunset.
One of minors is said to be the son of a GHMC corporator.
The accused allegedly raped the girl inside a parked Innova at an isolated spot in Banjara Hills after they picked her up at a pub in upmarket Jubilee Hills on May 28. The Innova belongs to a political leader holding a key position in a state government body and his juvenile son is one of the accused.
On May 31, police registered a case under various sections of IPC including assaulting a woman with the intent to outrage her modesty.
Guilty will not be spared: Cops
The other charges included voluntarily causing hurt apart from sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act on a complaint by the survivor's father.
Even as police searched for the suspects including the son of a political leader holding a key position in a state government body, BJP leaders stormed Jubilee Hills police station alleging that officials were deliberately protecting the accused. They alleged that the accused were close to leaders from ruling TRS and AIMIM.
Subsequently police recorded the statement of the survivor based on which section 376-D (gang rape) of the IPC was added to the FIR. "The survivor said that five boys raped her in a car after she left the pub," said West Zone DCP Joel Davis.
During investigation, police found out that the girl went to a non-alcoholic party at the pub on the invitation of a youngster who is her neighbour in Banjara Hills. The father of the survivor named the neighbour in the FIR. Police picked up boy and during the questioning, he said that at the end of the party he did not see the survivor at the pub. When he called her she messaged back saying she would contact him later.
Police accessed CCTV footage from various places around the pub on May 28 evening. The visuals showed the girl initially getting into a Mercedes Benz at the pub and going to a bakery in Banjara Hills. The group of youngsters left the bakery at around 6.30 pm and this time, the girl along with the five youngsters got into an Innova. The son of an MLA who was in the Innova, got down near the bakery and police claim that he was not in the group that raped the girl. "From the CCTV footage, CDR analysis, statements of the victim and the arrested accused, the role of the MLA's son in the crime has not been established. The investigation is still going on and once the victim regains full health, we will record her statement before the magistrate. The accused will also be examined and if the evidence shows the involvement of others, however influential they may be, we will initiate stringent legal action against them," the DCP said.
Police officials have identified the Benz, registered in the name of a woman from Banjara Hills and the second 18 year old accused who is yet to be arrested, was driving it.
While the BJP leaders claimed that the survivor was raped after attending Telangana home minister Md Mahmood Ali's grandson's bachelor party ahead of his wedding, west zone DCP Joel Davis said that the allegations were baseless.
(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)
