Shalimar Bagh park gang rape: Victims taken to scene of crime to recreate events
The girl was taken to the park on Sunday, while her 18-year-old male friend was taken to the location on Monday so they could provide their respective accounts of how events panned out on the evening of December 16.
Delhi Police carried out a reconstruction of last Saturday’s gang rape in Shalimar Bagh, where a 16-year-old girl was sexually assaulted and her male friend allegedly beaten up by three men, by taking the victims to the scene of the crime.
The girl was taken to the park on Sunday, while her 18-year-old male friend was taken to the location on Monday so they could provide their respective accounts of how events panned out on the evening of December 16.
Officials said there were slight differences in the versions narrated by the girl and the boy. Investigators added that the discrepancies may be due to the fact that the girl has been in a state of trauma over the past two days, while her friend appeared to be more composed.
An investigator, who has been in touch with the survivor and her family over the past few days but did not wish to be named, told HT that said that the 16-year-old is in a fragile state of mind. “This prevents her from clearly replying to our questions. When asked to recall the sequence of events, the memories of the brutal sexual assault kept coming back to her and she has not been able to share much till Monday afternoon,” said the police officer who is a part of the investigating team.
However, her friend when he was taken to the park on Monday provided his account calmly, officials added. Investigators said that they were also probing if he knew the three men and had hidden this fact from the girl. They were also looking into the fact that he told her not to share the details of the sexual assault with anyone.
“Both of them have said they did not know the three accused. However, she told us that she saw the accused outside the park on a motorcycle, but he doesn’t recall seeing them. He also claimed that he fell unconscious after being hit once, whereas he doesn’t have any injury marks from the attack. We will need to verify these claims,” said the officer.
Police had not made any arrests till Monday evening even as they said efforts were being made to trace the absconding suspects.
At the park, the girl was asked to identify the location and police officers also spoke to her about the appearance of the accused and if they said anything to her. The girl is learnt to have told the investigators that the accused were talking in a dialect which appeared to resemble Bhojpuri.
She also told the police she shared her ordeal with her mother on Saturday evening itself against the alleged advice of her friend. Her father, a carpenter, was not in town, the mother took her to the police station.
Deputy commissioner of police (northwest) Aslam Khan said that the police was making efforts to trace the accused but there were no concrete leads as of Monday.