How police cracked case within 72 hours

BY DECEMBER 21, ALL ACCUSED WERE CAUGHT AND THE CHARGESHEET WAS FILED IN 18 DAYS

At 1.17am on December 17, 2012, inspector Ram Sahai Meena, the then additional station house officer of Vasant Vihar police station, was out on night patrolling duty in Munirka area when a message flashed on his wireless about a critically injured couple admitted to Safdarjung Hospital.

Meena rushed to the hospital where doctors told him that the two were brought in without clothes and that the girl, the 23-year-old paramedical student, was brutally gangraped. The inspector alerted the then SHO Anil Sharma, who informed the then DCP (south) Chhaya Sharma, and they both arrived at the hospital in less than 20 minutes.

“Anil this is going to be a very serious case,” was the first sentence that Chhaya Sharma said to the SHO after seeing the horrific condition of the couple.

A special task force, led by inspector Rajender Singh, now an ACP, was formed in addition to 10 others teams, each led by an inspector, to probe the case. Subinspector Pratibha, now an inspector, was the investigating officer of the gangrape case after the FIR was registered.

“One of the teams spoke to the woman’s male friend and collected details about the suspects, their bus, and the routes taken by them. The descriptions given by the male friend were vague,” said Sharma.

The information that the police had about the bus was that it was a white chartered bus, its wheels did not have caps, the seat covers were red and curtains were yellow. Also, the rear gate of the bus was locked. There were 380 such buses registered in Delhi. The first clue was received around noon on December 18.

“The CCTV camera footage of a hotel in Mahipalpur showed a similar bus passing by the area twice — first at 9.34pm and again at 9.54 pm on December 16. The male victim was shown the footage and he identified the bus. Though the video footage was blur, we managed to see the word ‘Yadav’ written on the bus,” said the then STF chief.

Further efforts helped police locate the bus parked outside Ravidas Camp in RK Puram from where its driver Ram Singh was arrested. He confessed to the crime and revealed names of the other five accused. By December 21, all the accused were caught and evidences were recovered. The chargesheet was filed in 18 days.

Former Delhi police commissioner Neeraj Kumar, who monitored the probe, said that his force solved the case within 72 hours, despite the lack of initial leads. “I am very happy that the court, at every level, has appreciated our investigation. But people should also realise how difficult the case was. Nobody is talking about the police’s role and how the case was investigated well. I took care of the chargesheet, plugging all the loopholes,” he said. WITH PTI INPUTS