Victim’s family, police debunk each other’s version of incident

ROHTAK: In a twist to the Rohtak gang-rape case, police, claiming to have evidence, has taken into custody two persons, not accused by the victim, and said that the woman has not come forward to corroborate the arrest.

The 21-year-old woman’s kin, however, said the two arrested persons - Sandeep Hooda and Pramod Kumar - might be connected to another case, and maintained that his sister was allegedly raped by the five persons named earlier Amit, Jagmohan, Sandeep, Akash and Mausam - no July 13.

“The police could be talking about some other girl. I have just spoken to her (victim) and she says she doesn’t know anything the police are talking about. She maintains she was abducted and raped by the five men she has named in her complaint,” the victim’s brother told HT.

He reiterated that the five men had raped her for not withdrawing a 2013 rape case, and accused the police or misrepresenting facts.

Police, however, claimed that they had CCTV footage to show that the girl was with Hooda and Kumar on that day.

“We have the footage of their vehicular movement to show that she (victim) had gone with at least one of the accused to a hotel on the day of the incident. The other (accused) had also reportedly joined them later. They had drinks after which she was found at Sukhpura Chowk in a drunken state,” Rohtak SP?Rakesh Arya told HT.

Police also claimed to have secured CCTV?footage of the hotel, showing the woman entering with Pramod, a health worker at CMO office in Rohtak, and later joined by Hooda. Police said Hooda told them that he knew the girl and she called him to meet her on the day of the alleged rape.

“The two have confessed that they had sex with the girl. Now, it’s up to the girl to tell that to which extent they forced her,” the SP said, adding that “Neither the girl nor her family is cooperating with the police. They have been given notices several times to join the investigation, but we receive no reply from them.”

When asked whether the victim was trying to falsely implicate the five men from Bhiwani, the SP said, “Our focus is to find out only the truth and produce it in court. We want to know what exactly happened on that day, with whom was the woman during the said time, and where did they all go. The rest of the things are up to the court to decide.”