The second suspect in the brutal rape of the five year-old girl was arrested in Bihar’s Lakhisarai district on Monday. After his arrest, police have now said the victim was gang raped.
Pradeep Ram, 19, who was hiding in his uncle’s house at Badhaiya area in the district, was arrested by a team of Delhi Police and their Bihar counterpart, said Neeraj Kumar, commissioner of police.
Pradeep was produced before a chief judicial magistrate in Lakhisarai and the court granted a three-day transit remand og the accused to Delhi Police. He was brought in to the Capital by Monday evening and police are grilling him.
“We have got information from our team in Bihar that Pradeep has confessed to the crime. He is an illiterate,” Kumar said.
While on his way to the Capital, Pradeep, told reporters that he has “committed a big mistake.”
Prabhakar, deputy commissioner of police (east) — who is heading the investigation — told Deccan Herald, “Pradeep has admitted to the crime before Bihar Police during preliminary interrogation. We have now invoked the sections concerning gang rape in the case.”
Police said Pradeep, who hails from Sheikhupura district in Bihar, lives in rented accommodation at Loni area in Ghaziabad.
He and Manoj Kumar are friends and have also worked together. Pardeep came to the Capital four years ago and was working as a mason.
Police came to know about his involvement after they interrogating Manoj, 22, who was arrested at his in-law’s house in Muzaffarpur on Saturday.
Manoj, who is in judicial remand till May 4, said Pradeep came to his house at Gandhi Nagar in east Delhi on April 15 and they had consumed alcohol.
Drunk, Pradeep then asked Manoj to “arrange a call girl for fun” but seeing the victim playing outside her house, they lured her with a pack of chocolates and assaulted her.
Scared of being identified, both then planned to eliminate her. They strangled her and assuming that she was dead, both fled for their native places.
Meanwhile, police said they have to verify lot of things. They need to grill them simultaneously and clarify their separate versions by making them confront.
“We are interrogating Pradeep and trying to ascertain the exact details in the case,” said a police officer.
