Mumbai: In a major embarrassment for Mumbai Police, one of the four persons accused of gang-raping a photojournalist in Shakti Mills compound on August 22, has gone missing. Reports on Thursday said that one of those accused 'Siraj Rehman Khan' has escaped from the Thane jail where they all have been lodged. Confirming the development, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjawal Nikam said, "Siraj Rahman Khan, an accused in Shakti Mills gang-rape case of photojournalist, is untraceable." The Mumbai Sessions court has taken a serious note of this development and asked the concerned authorities to file a reply tomorrow, the Special Public Prosecutor said.
The development comes days after a dreaded Indian Mujahideen militant Afzal Usmani, an accused in 2008 Ahmedabad and Surat blast cases, also escaped while being produced in a local court here. Mumbai Police had recently filed a chargesheet against four accused in last month's gang-rape case. A chargesheet was filed separately against the juvenile accomplice of the accused before a juvenile court. The accused have been charged under various sections of IPC including 376(d) (gang rape), 377 (unnatural offence), 201 (destruction of evidence) and 120(b) (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (common intention) among others.
The 600-page chargesheet filed in a magistrate's court has details of the survivor's ordeal, statements of 86 witnesses, forensic evidence collected from the spot, DNA analysis reports, besides phone call records. The photojournalist was allegedly raped by the five accused when she had gone to the deserted Shakti Mills compound on August 22 with a male colleague on assignment. The accused - Salim Ansari, Vijay Jadhav, Mohammed Kasim Hafiz Shaikh alias Kasim Bengali, Siraj Rehman Khan and the minor - had tied up the survivor's male companion with belts and allegedly raped her. Police had claimed it had a "watertight" case against all the five accused.
Mumbai: Following the arrest of all five accused in the Mumbai gang-rape case, the police have now launched a hunt for the mobile phone that was used to take pictures of the victim after she was sexually assaulted.
The 22-year-old photojournalist, working as an intern with an English magazine, was gang-raped in the premises of the defunct Shakti Mills compound where she had gone along with a male colleague on an official assignment to shoot pictures on August 22.
Reports quoted police as saying that the missing phone belonged to one of the accused Mohammed Kasim Hafiz Shaikh alias Kasim Bengali, 21, who has been described as "the most depraved" of the lot.
The police told a court yesterday that Bangali was not co-operating and has refused to disclose where he has hidden the phone. Bengali, a resident of Agripada in central Mumbai, is in police custody till August 30.
Other reports, meanwhile, said the phone belonged to Salim Ansari, who was arrested from Delhi by the Crime Branch sleuths yesterday. He is being brought to Mumbai and is expected to be produced before the court today for remand.
Reports said Ansari, who was arrested from Bharat Nagar in North-West Delhi, sold off the mobile phone in Delhi as he was running out of cash.
As per police, the accused had tied up the victim's colleague at a little distance away from the scene of the crime and gang-raped her after threatening her with a broken piece of a beer bottle which they placed near her neck. They shot pictures of the act and warned the victim not to disclose it to anyone or else the pictures would be circulated.
All five accused have been booked under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) such as 376(D) (rape), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506(2) (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention).
MUMBAI: City police commissioner Satya Pal Singh on Friday said the trial against the five accused, who gang-raped a photo journalist, will take place in a fast track court.
The girl, who was reportedly on an assignment for photoshoot at Shakti Mills near Lower Parel on Thursday, was raped by five youths. Her male friend was assaulted by the accused, who tied him to a tree.
"We have formed 20 teams to investigate the case. We will make a watertight case and it will be heard in a fast track court for faster justice," the city police chief said.
The police have so far arrested only one accused while the other four have been identified.
"The arrested accused has confessed to his crime. We will seek maximum punishment for the accused," he added.
According to the commissioner, the accused told the girl and her male colleague that they were on railway property where photography was not allowed.
Suspects first approached victim and her colleague to harass them.
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