Park Street gang-rape prime suspect held

Five years on, Kolkata and Delhi Police nab him from Uttar Pradesh

In a major breakthrough, the Kolkata Police arrested Kader Khan, prime suspect in the Park Street gang-rape case nearly five years after the incident. A special team from the Kolkata Police, in a joint operation with the Delhi Police, tracked down Kader to an apartment at Sector 52 in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, where he was living under the alias Faisal Khan. After watching the apartment for several days, police in plain clothes confirmed Kader’s identity and picked him up on Thursday evening.

At the time of the arrest, his friend Ali Khan, also a suspect  in the case, was with him. Kader and Ali tried to escape from the police, but were apprehended after a chase. Both the suspects were hiding in the apartment for a few months, the police said. Sources said Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar, an expert in anti-cyber crime operations, along with Deputy Commissioner (South Division) Murlidhar Sharma guided the teams.  Sources said Kader initially took shelter with business contacts in Bangladesh, but returned to India after he ran out of money. “We received information that (Kader) Khan returned to India and was regularly calling his family members in Kolkata. Surveillance of their phones led to his location,” an officer said.

Kader and Ali are being brought down to Kolkata on transit remand and would be produced at a city court on Saturday. Officers are interrogating Kader to find out the names of those who provided him money and shelter since 2012.

The two were absconding since the gang-rape of a 37-year-old woman, who they met at a nightclub in Kolkata’s Park Street on February 5, 2012. Kader had struck a conversation with the woman at the nightclub and offered her a lift back home in his car. After she got into the car, Kader and his four friends took turns to rape her in the moving vehicle, before throwing her out at a traffic intersection.

The woman lodged a police complaint a few days later, leading to the arrest of Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj. Kader and Ali fled the city. The victim died due to encephalitis in March 2015. A city court in December 2015 convicted Ruman, Naser and Sumit, sentencing them to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment.