Mumbai gang rape accused taken to crime scene

Mumbai: The five suspects arrested in the gang rape of a 23-year-old photojournalist in Mumbai were on Wednesday taken to Shakti Mills compound to reconstruct the chain of events that led to the crime.

The police took them to the crime scene in the afternoon to seek details as to what happened on that fateful day.

Also present were a team of forensic experts from Gujarat to gather all the medical evidence that they could.

The victim, an intern with an English-language magazine, was allegedly raped by the five accused when she had gone to the isolated mill compound with her male colleague on August 22 for an assignment.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Himanshu Roy, who is handling the investigation, also went to the Mills compound with the accused.

Roy told reporters: “We want to gather enough evidence to build a watertight case.”

All the five accused — Salim Ansari, Vijay Jadhav, Chand Babu, Sattar Sheikh, Mohammad Kasim Hafiz Shaikh alias Kasim Bengali and Siraj Rahman Khan — are presently in the custody of the Mumbai Crime Branch.

Meanwhile, the photojournalist was discharged from hospital after “improving steadily”, staff said on Wednesday.

The woman was admitted to the city’s Jaslok Hospital with internal and external injuries after the attack last Thursday evening.

“The patient had improved steadily and our team of doctors especially assigned ... had declared the patient medically fit for discharge yesterday evening,” the acting head of the hospital said in a statement.

A Mumbai-based newspaper, DNA, published the statement to police given by the male colleague of the rape survivor in which he says that the duo were trapped and threatened by the accused, who marched them off into a desolate spot within the mills compound to commit the crime.

The gang told the male colleague that he was behind a murder that had been committed inside a few days back and therefore they had to go with them.

“We then requested them to let us go but they ordered us to remain quiet. The bulky man then removed his belt and started beating me and then tied my hands behind my back with the belt. Seeing this, my female colleague pleaded with them and even offered them her mobile phone and my camera … But they didn’t listen and one of them removed the belts of my pants [trousers] and my colleague’s pants [trousers].”

Tying up the male colleague’s hands once again tightly with a rope, three of the accused stood beside him “while the bulky person and another person with moustache took my female colleague to a nearby dilapidated room. I was continuously pleading with the three persons who were guarding me to let us go but they did not listen to me.”

The five men went one after the other and finally when his colleague came out “she was scared and caught my hand.”

The five accused marched them to the railway tracks, when it was about 7.15pm, and asked them to walk towards Mahalakshmi station without looking back.

It was then that the victim told him that all the five men had “raped her six times and she was in pain and bleeding,” and asked her friend to take her to a hospital.

“I immediately contacted my boss and informed about the incident and also told him that I am taking her to Jaslok Hospital.”

On the way, the boss also joined them.