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Hyderabad police seek 10-day custody of accused in gang rape case
Of the four accused apprehended so far, 18-year-old Saduddin Malik was sent to judicial custody on Saturday, while the other three - all minors - are in the custody of the juvenile court in Nampallu criminal court complex.
The Hyderabad police on Monday sought 10-day custody of four accused, including three juveniles, arrested in connection with gang rape of a minor girl, a police officer said, adding that manhunt for the fifth accused continued.
Of the four accused apprehended so far, 18-year-old Saduddin Malik was sent to judicial custody on Saturday, while the three minors are in the custody of the juvenile court in Nampallu criminal court complex.
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On Monday, the police submitted a petition before a magistrate court and the juvenile court in Nampally, seeking 10-day custody of the accused for questioning. The fifth accused, identified as 18-year-old Omer Khan, is still absconding, the officer added.
One of the juveniles is son of the chairman of a government-run minority institution, the father of the second one is a Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader from Sangareddy while the third is the son of a corporator from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), said the officer.
Police have earlier said that the minor girl, who visited a pub in Hyderabad on May 28, was gang-raped by five persons including three juveniles. A case under sections 376-D (gang rape) and 323 (causing injuries) of the Indian Penal Code, besides sections 5 and 6 of Protection of Children from Sexual Offices (POCSO) Act has been registered against the five at Jubilee Hills police station.
A senior police officer requesting anonymity said the investigating authorities on Monday recorded the statement of the survivor to ascertain the role of an All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) legislator’s son in the case. They also recorded the statements of the girl’s parents.
“It is not immediately known what the girl has revealed about the MLA’s son, but if there is any remote evidence of the boy’s involvement in the incident, he will be made an accused in the case,” the senior officer added.
On June 4, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Dubbak, M Raghunandan Rao, held a press conference and released some photographs and a 10-second video purportedly showing the minor girl with a boy, who he alleged was the son of an AIMIM legislator. The BJP has also demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
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Police, however, said the authenticity of the photos and video clip was yet to be ascertained.
HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the photographs and the clip.
In their remand report submitted before the court on Monday, the police suspected the corporator’s son as the mastermind in the incident, said the senior officer cited above. The remand report was not made public.
The corporator’s son, along with Malik, had offered to drop the girl in a Mercedes Benz car, which belonged to absconding accused Omer Khan, who is the grandson of a former legislator. “At the Concu pastry shop, they forced her to get into a Toyota Innova car, saying the Mercedes car had run out of fuel,” the second officer said, adding that the Innova belonged to the son of the minority institution’s chairman.
After committing the offence, they dropped the girl back at the pub. They then returned to the pastry shop, took a group photo and posted it on Instagram with a caption “party is over”, before dispersing to their respective homes, the officer added.
After the case was registered, the accused fled to different places, leaving the Innova car parked at a farmhouse that belonged to the chairman, the officer said. On Saturday, the police seized the Innova car used in the crime.
