30-year-old gang-raped by three in auto in Hapur

Peeyush Khandelwal and S Raju

A 30-year-old woman from Gautam Budh Nagar was allegedly gang-raped in Hapur district of Uttar Pradesh by two co-passengers and the driver of the autorickshaw she was travelling in late on Wednesday night, police said on Friday.

A complaint has been filed against the three unidentified accused, but no arrests have been made so far.

Police said that the woman works for a jewellery store at a mall in Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram and was heading home to Greater Noida after leaving work around 8:30pm on Wednesday night when the incident occurred.

On Wednesday, she boarded the first auto from National Highway-9 and reached the Lal Kuan intersection in Ghaziabad

MEERUT/GHAZIABAD:

around 9:15pm.

From Lal Kuan intersection, she boarded another autorickshaw with three co-passengers and the driver — all men. Soon after one of the passengers de-boarded, the driver steered the auto 20km towards a secluded spot in Masuri area (Ghaziabad), bordering Pilkhuwa area of Hapur, where the three overpowered the woman and raped her, police said.

According to police officials, the incident occurred around 10pm a short distance away from the highway and near a small canal in Hapur.

“We received a call at around 3.30am on Thursday from control room in Ghaziabad about the incident. The scene of crime told by the woman is about 5-10 metres inside the jurisdiction of Hapur district and we immediately registered an FIR under IPC section of gangrape (Section 376 D) based on her complaint given at Pilkhuwa police station.

We have formed three teams and are trying to trace the three unidentified men who, she said, were in the age group of around 30,” said Neeraj Kumar Jadaun, superintendent of police (Hapur), who also visited the scene of incident.

“They stopped the auto before the Lal Kuan flyover, during which they gagged me and people sitting behind asked the driver to turn on the music system ... They then raped me one by one... Around 11.30pm they took me to the main road and waited for a bus. However, when none of the passing buses stopped, they made me board an auto back to Lal Kuan,” the woman said in her complaint.

She stated that the suspects had snatched her mobile, so she begged her auto-driver to lend her his phone, which he refused claiming he had no balance. The auto then stopped at a juice shop at Masuri. But the vendor there too refused to help her saying that it was a case of kidnapping and directed her to reach Masuri police station nearby.

The woman reached Masuri police station in Ghaziabad at around 11:30pm, after which the Ghaziabad police finally referred the matter to their counterparts in Hapur and later sent for medical examination.

“After the woman reached us, we inquired the matter and referred the incident to the Hapur police who lodged the FIR. On our part, we have also formed one team to help investigation,” said Iraj Raja, superintendent of police (rural), Hapur.

Additional superintendent of police (Hapur) Sarvesh Mishra said authorities were scanning CCTV footage in the area near the crime site to identify the suspects.

The woman has a 10-year-old child and was living separately from her husband.