New Delhi: A 23-year-old woman was battling for life here yesterday after a gang of men tortured and raped her in a moving bus and threw her out on the road along with her boyfriend, police said.
Police arrested one of alleged rapists, Ram Singh, a resident of R K Puram Sector 3. Singh was the driver of the bus but on Sunday had let his brother, Mukesh, drive, police said. Singh has reportedly given cops the names of the six other men in the bus. Mukesh and another accused, identified as Kalu, too were nabbed late at night. All three lived in Ravidas Camp slums at sector 3, R K Puram.
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit expressed disgust over the horrific incident even as police detained suspects for the overnight crime and hunted for other accomplices. While the 28-year-old boyfriend was discharged after treatment, the young woman, whose name is being withheld, was on ventilator at the Safdarjung Hospital with life-threatening injuries.
“The patient is critical,” hospital spokesman S N Makwana said. Doctors said she had grave injuries on the stomach and intestine, and she bore signs of having been beaten with a blunt object. Police said the attack took place when the young couple reached Munirka in south Delhi around 9.15pm on Sunday after watching a movie at a mall in Saket and boarded a bus to go to Dwarka.
“Around seven men, including the driver and conductor, told the couple they were headed to Dwarka,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Chhaya Sharma said.
The men misbehaved with the woman. When the boyfriend intervened, he was beaten up, said Sharma. The woman was then raped in the moving bus by four men. Both victims were pushed out of the bus at Mahipalpur in south Delhi at around 10.30pm after their mobile phones were snatched. A police vehicle rushed them to hospital after being tipped off by a toll plaza patrol that a young man and a young woman were lying sprawled by the roadside, Sharma said.
The young woman, who belongs to Ballia in Uttar Pradesh, was interning at a hospital here for some months. She lives in Mahavir Enclave in west Delhi.
Her friend hails from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and lives in Ber Sarai in south Delhi. He had completed his B.Tech from Meerut and was preparing for civil services examination.
Sharma said CCTV footage of the bus was seized from a toll plaza in Gurgaon. “A case of kidnapping, robbery and rape has been registered,” she added. “Over 50 buses have been checked till now.” Chief Minister Dikshit pledged “strict action” against the attackers. Agencies
