The eighth accused in the Jnanabharathi gang-rape case, Raja alias Mutturaj, 24, a resident of Mettari Doddi on the outskirts of Bangalore, was arrested from his in-laws’ house at Kebbedoddi, Anekal taluk, in the early hours of Tuesday.
A student of the National Law School of India University was gang-raped on the Jnanabharathi campus on October 13 last year, by a gang of eight men. The City police had arrested six of them on October 19, while the other two escaped. Police traced the two to the Jnanabharathi campus the same day in the evening.
They fired at the duo in self-defence, when the accused tried to attack the cops while fleeing. Police were successful in nabbing Rama, 23, after he was injured by a bullet in his leg. However, Raja fled the spot and had been eluding the police since then.
Of the seven arrested, six were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by the V Fast Track Court on September 6. The seventh accused, a minor, is standing trial at the juvenile court.
With the arrest of Raja, according to a senior official, he will now have to stand trial separately. He is presently remanded in judicial custody.
A senior official who led the team that nabbed Raja said that the police found it very difficult to track down Raja as his family had no information about him.
He was not even using his cellphone, making it impossible for the cops to trace him. With a hunch that he would return to his wife some day, the police hired informers at Kebbedoddi, his in-laws’ place, where his wife relocated after Raja went missing.
The official said Raja had come home for the festival on Monday morning.
Tipped off by an informant, the Jnanabharathi police surrounded the house in the wee hours of Tuesday and apprehended him.
Police said Raja revealed that he had fled to Goa and was working as a coolie. He had heard that the gang-rape case was completed and had come home for the festival. A senior official said they arrested Raja in the nick of time as this could have been his last visit to the City.
He said Raja had confessed to the police that he was planning to take his wife to Goa, never to return.