The main suspect in the brutal gang rape of a 22-year-old Bangladeshi woman was shot at and arrested by the police on Wednesday.
Police had learnt that Sobuj, 30, the alleged kingpin of the prostitution racket, had been hiding near a rag pickers' settlement in Rampura, East Bengaluru.
The tip came after the arrest of a woman and two others — Sania, Afsal and Daalim — in Chennai in the case on Tuesday night.
A police team from Ramamurthy Nagar, headed by sub-inspector Shivaraj and head constable Devendra Nayak, arrested Sobuj from Rampura early on Wednesday morning. But while he was being taken to the police station, Sobuj requested the cops to allow him to relieve himself.
The cops agreed. Sobuj changed course and attacked Nayak with a knife in a bid to escape. The sub-inspector gave chase and eventually shot him in the leg.
S D Sharanappa, Deputy Commissioner of Police (East), described Sobuj as the prime suspect in the case. He said Sobuj had a financial dispute with the victim, who is believed to have been trafficked into India with the promise of a decent job. She had gone to Kozhikode from Bengaluru following the money dispute.
The gang convinced her to come back to the city, and brutally assaulted and raped her at their house in Ramamurthy Nagar on May 19 and 20.
It was Sobuj who filmed the crime on a mobile phone and sent the video to his friends on WhatsApp. The video — three minutes and 45 seconds long — went viral in Northeast India and Bangladesh.
Sobuj is the 10th person to be arrested in the case, and the third to be shot by the police.
Police expect to arrest more people.
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