Mobile phone in a ‘white, long’ car: How Delhi Police solved Moti Bagh rape case

When police began their probe, the only clue the woman provided them was that she was raped in a ‘long’ car that was white in colour.

A mobile phone, accidentally dropped by a rape survivor in the car where the alleged crime took place on Wednesday night, helped Delhi Police catch hold of the accused and solve the Moti Bagh case.

The car in which a 20-year-old woman was allegedly raped in Moti Bagh on Wednesday night. (Ravi Choudhary/HT Photo)

Police traced the Maruti SX4 car, which the accused had parked alognside other cars some 100 meters away from the crime scene, with the help of the 20-year-old rape survivor’s phone.

The woman was allegedly raped in south Delhi’s Moti Bagh by a man posing as a cabbie. The woman got into the car at 9.30pm on Wednesday and was driven around for two hours before being allegedly assaulted. She had come to the city in search of a job.

She was waiting near Safdarjung Tomb for a bus to Noida when the accused, identified as Avnish, pulled up in a the Maruti Suzuki SX4 car with a home ministry sticker on the windscreen.

When police began their probe, the only clue the woman could provide them was that she was raped in a ‘long’, white car. She did not remember the model of the vehicle or its registration number.

The woman said she fought back against the driver and managed to escape from the car. She then ran to the main road, where she saw a police bike patrolling the area and approached them, police said.

The policemen asked her to guide them to the spot where the incident took place. Though it was dark, the woman could still identify the crime scene and led the cops there.

“The driver had fled with his car by then. As the crime was serious, the cops immediately called the nearest emergency response vehicle (ERV) and alerted the station house officer of south campus police station,” said a senior police officer.

The woman was sent to AIIMS for medical examination. While the woman was on her way to AIIMS, a police team was tasked to look for the car in the vicinity. The woman, on the other hand, constantly kept asking the cops at the hospital about updates in the case.

The woman, after learning that police had failed to locate the car till 4am, even volunteered to join the search. She was again taken to the crime scene where she realised that her mobile phone was missing and she might have left it in the car.

“That was the first solid lead we got. The phone was switched off when a call was made. We then approached the mobile service provider and they confirmed the phone’s location was not far from the crime spot,” said the officer.

The search operation continued and around 5am, the woman identified a car that was parked some 100 meters from the crime spot.

Police found a MHA sticker on the front windscreen. Investigations revealed that the car belonged to one Mohit Pawar, a resident of Kotla Mubarakur. A police team reached the owner’s house who told them that he had hired one Avnish as his driver a week ago.

Following this, the details of the driver were procured and the accused traced to a slum in Dhaula Kuan. “Aman was arrested at 5pm on Thursday when he was drinking with his friends in Moti Bagh,” the officer added.