Nurse’s recollection of route, timing helped nab the accused

A nurse’s accurate description of the route taken by the auto-rickshaw driver she had hired from central Delhi, and a near-precise recollection of what time she

A nurse’s accurate description of the route taken by the auto-rickshaw driver she had hired from central Delhi, and a near-precise recollection of what time she crossed which location during the 50-minute ride helped arrest the accused, who allegedly molested and then robbed the woman in north Delhi on Tuesday night, the police said.

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Deputy commissioner of police (north-west district) Vijayanta Arya said that had it not been for the survivor’s recollection of the route and the timings at which she crossed particular locations “valuable time” would have been lost by the police.

“We had constituted six teams to catch the driver. Once the survivor shared the details of the ride, we began scanning footages from CCTV cameras installed along that route. There was one particular auto-rickshaw that kept appearing in several footages around the time the three-wheeler of the accused had passed those locations,” the DCP said.

The footages helped the police read the auto-rickshaw’s registration number plate and identify its 45-year-old owner, Bhanu Singh.

A father to three children, Singh has allegedly confessed to his interrogators that his plan was to sexually assault the woman and he decided to rob her only when she began escaping. “He snatched her phone to prevent her from informing the police,” the officer said.

The investigator said that Singh had thought he would get away with the crime. “He told us that neither did he expect the victim to report the crime to the police, nor did he think he would be identified if at all she filed a complaint,” the investigator said.

The police probe, so far, has revealed that Bhanu was not carrying any weapon. “It isn’t clear whether the decision to sexually assault the woman was planned or he decided to commit it on the spur of the moment,” Arya said.

The police quoted the survivor as saying that she recollected the face of the auto-driver and that he would soon be made to undergo a test identification parade (TIP).

An average number of eight incidents of molestation per day were reported to the police till November 15 this year. While this is a dip from the corresponding period last year, incidents of rape have seen a marginal increase with over six such cases being reported every day on an average during the same period.