Greater Noida-Delhi bus owner skipped verification of gangrape accused

Police are checking whether other staff hired by the operator were also working without mandatory verification or clearance.

The driver and conductor accused of allegedly gangraping a 16-year-old girl on board a private sleeper bus had not undergone police verification, and the bus operator had never even submitted an application for their verification, police said on Wednesday. The probe has now widened to examine whether other drivers and staff employed by the operator were similarly hired without police clearance.

Police found that the accused driver and conductor had not undergone mandatory police verification. (HT Photo)

Police said they recorded the statement of the bus owner on Wednesday and questioned him about alleged lapses in the recruitment and supervision of staff. The bus in which the alleged incident took place also did not have CCTV cameras and had more than eight traffic challans, officers said.

“The bus did not have CCTV. The owner never got the police clearance certificate done for the accused. We also found that many of their drivers and staffers are also without verification. The bus which the accused was driving also had more than eight traffic challans. We are asking them about their negligence in maintaining the buses and the staffers,” a senior police officer said.

The incident took place on August 4, when the driver and conductor allegedly gang-raped the Class 11 student from Uttar Pradesh after misleading her into boarding the sleeper bus. The 16-year-old, a resident of Mainpuri, had run away from home on August 3 after being reprimanded by her mother over her studies and was planning to stay with a cousin in Sector 63, Noida.

According to police, the accused picked her up at Pari Chowk in Greater Noida and later dropped her near the Kashmere Gate Inter-State Bus Terminal in Delhi. The bus travelled around 47km between the two locations. Its windows were covered with curtains, making it difficult for people outside to see inside, police said.

During the investigation, police also found that the bus did not have a fixed or clearly defined route and that the driver had been assigned different routes in Uttar Pradesh in the weeks preceding the incident.

“On the day of the incident as well, the bus went to two repair shops before it reached Pari Chowk. The bus was supposed to go to Kashmere Gate for some paint work. We have taken down all the details and questioned the repair shop owners in Surajpur and Malakpur and the paint shop owner in Delhi to find out if they noticed anything unusual. It was after the repair work that the accused picked up the girl and took her to Kashmere Gate, where they dropped her and then went to another shop,” a second police officer said.

Police are also examining whether there were other lapses in the operation and maintenance of the bus and the hiring of its staff.

HT reached out to the travel company on its mobile number, but it was switched off. The owner did not respond to messages sent on WhatsApp.

Police said they are currently examining CCTV footage collected from Pari Chowk, the Kashmere Gate area and locations along the bus’s route. They are also awaiting forensic science laboratory reports on biological samples collected from the bus.