Shalimar Bagh gang rape: Three nabbed, ‘friend’ not involved, say cops

A 16-year-old girl was gang-raped and her 19-year-old friend was assaulted allegedly by three men on December 16 last year in Shalimar Bagh.

The Delhi Police on Friday said they have arrested three men for allegedly gang raping a 16-year-old girl and assaulting her male friend in Shalimar Bagh’s Sheesh Mahal Park last month.

The girl was gang-raped in a park while her male friend was beaten up and their mobile phones were robbed allegedly by three men. (HT FILE)

The incident took place on December 16 last year, five years after a 23-year-old paramedical student was gang raped on a moving bus in the Capital leading to nationwide protests.

The girl, in her complaint to the police, had stated that she was gang raped in a park while her male friend was beaten up and their mobile phones allegedly robbed from them by the three men.

“We zeroed in on the suspects with the help of local intelligence and their mobile phone locations. All three of them were arrested on Thursday. Arun and Kamlesh were nabbed in Delhi, while a team was sent to Varanasi to nab the third accused,” said Khan, adding that the trio had confessed to their involvement in the crime.

Two of the three arrested men have been identified as Arun Yadav, 36, and Kamlesh, 28, said deputy commissioner of police (northwest) Aslam Khan. The third suspect, a 33-year-old auto-rickshaw driver, whose name is being withheld, is an accused in another rape case, that of a minor, that took place in 2013, police said.

Khan said that the auto-driver had been previously booked for allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl at the same Shalimar Bagh park in 2013. The girl and her family then had alleged that the accused had established physical relation with her on the pretext of marriage but had later gone back on his promise.

“They later reached a compromise when he agreed to marry the girl and the case was quashed. However, he abandoned her soon after marriage,” said Khan.

The other accused, Arun, is a distributor of pesticides, while Kamlesh is school dropout, police added.

All the three men were produced at Tis Hazari court on Friday afternoon and were remanded to one day police custody, where police might conduct a test identification parade.

Friend gets clean chit

Delhi police, after the arrests, also said that they have given a clean chit to the gang rape victim’s 19-year-old male friend and stated that neither was he involved nor did he know any of the three victims.

This is contrary to some of the statements made by the police in the first few days after the incident where they had said that there were inconsistencies in the version of the 19-year-old man and that they suspected he could have known the accused.

The sister of the 19-year-old man told HT that she was always certain that her brother was innocent and also accused the police of trying to frame him initially when they were struggling for leads.