Mumbai gang-rape accused not juvenile

Road to justice: Police commissioner says all suspects are locals

Mumbai Police chief Satyapal Singh on Monday refuted reports that five suspects arrested in the gang-rape case were  “juveniles and outsiders.” 

“They are all locals, uneducated, jobless and have dossiers in various police stations with regard to theft cases occurring in south-central Mumbai,” he told reporters.

A 23-year-old photojournalist, an intern at a magazine, was raped inside the abandoned Shakti Mills compound in the city on Thursday. Soon after the first arrest in the case on Friday, the accused Chand Shaikh’s grandmother claimed that he was a teenager and not an adult. In a bid to stem any legal wrangles over juvenile claims in the trial of the case, the police have decided to subject all the five arrested to bone-ossification test in order to ascertain their age.

On rumours about a video clip of the rape shot on mobile by the accused, the police chief clarified that only one photo was snapped and “apparently it seems to have been deleted”.
 However, he said, efforts will be made to retrieve it so as to confirm the evidence.

After the arrest of the fifth accused in Delhi, the police and  the legal prosecution team are preparing a charge sheet. In Pune, Criminal lawyer Ujjwal Nikam informed the local media that the state had asked him to appear as public prosecutor.

All the five accused—Chand Shaikh, Vijay Jadhav, Mohammed Shaikh, Siraj Khan and Salim Ansari—have been booked under IPC Sections 376 (D) (Rape), 342 (Wrongful Confinement), 506 (2) (Criminal Intimidation) and 34 (Common Intention).DH News Service