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Hyderabad pharmacy student abduction and rape case was a hoax, say police
The special operations teams of the Rachakonda police conducted thorough investigation to piece together the girl's movements and locations during the period she said she was abducted.
The alleged abduction and rape of a 19-year-old pharmacy student on the outskirts of Hyderabad on the evening of February 10 turned out to be a hoax, the Rachakonda police said on Saturday.
A three-day probe concluded that the student had misled her parents as well as the police.
“She was neither abducted nor raped. We found that it was a false case, after a thorough investigation and gathering of technical evidence,” Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagawat told reporters.
The second-year B Pharm student had told the police that the autorickshaw which she had boarded at Rampally cross roads did not stop at R L Nagar where she was supposed to get down, but continued to go at a high speed despite her cries.
She had claimed that the autorickshaw driver, along with two other men who boarded midway, took her to Yamnampet village, where she was bundled into a van and taken to a remote place. In the meantime, she managed to make a quick call to her mother, who informed the police through Dial 100 helpline.
The police swung into action and started searching for her by tracking her mobile phone. “Finally, we traced the woman in an isolated place near Bethel Church, Annojiguda service road. She was in a state of semi-conscious state with her clothes torn and there were injuries on her body. Police teams with her relatives shifted her to nearby Cure Hospital for treatment. Based on her statement, we, too, suspected it to be a case of kidnapping and rape and booked the case accordingly,” Bhagawat said.
In the last two days, the special operations teams of the Rachakonda police conducted thorough investigation to piece together the girl's movements and locations during the period she said she was abducted. “We managed to track down the autorickshaw in which the girl travelled with the help of the local auto drivers’ union. We examined the video footage obtained from 100 different closed-circuit television cameras located in the area and interrogated the auto drivers, locals and her college mates,” the police commissioner said.
The police teams found that there was absolutely no connection to what the pharmacy student claimed in her statement and the evidence the police had gathered.
“The video footage clearly showed that the woman got down at the next stop from her actual destination, walked for about four kilometres towards Yamnampet and then, took another autorickshaw to reach Annojiguda, from where she called her mother stating that she was kidnapped,” Bhagawat said.
The CCTV footage revealed that she was walking on the road near Annojiguda when she called her mother. “Exactly at the same time, the auto driver was at a bar after dropping other passengers at a shopping complex far away from the place where she was found,” the commissioner said.
After corroborating all the evidence, the police grilled the student on Friday following which she confessed that she had lied to the police. Apparently, she wanted to leave her house for her own reasons and hence enacted the whole drama, he said.
The police, however, did not explain why she was in a semi-conscious state lying in the bushes with her clothes torn. “Investigation will continue,” the commissioner said.
