Footage shows rape victim jumping off balcony
The woman left with him and on the way met two of his friends. The three brought her to the flat where their three other friends were already present.
Two days after a Nepalese woman was a gangraped by five BPO employees in Delhi’s Pandav Nagar, the police have recovered a CCTV camera footage that shows her jumping off the first floor and asking passers-by for help.
The police have arrested and sent the five men, all BPO employees, to jail. They are now looking for a man named Kundan (earlier identified as Vikas), who was a common link between the woman and the five men and who had allegedly taken her to the rented flat.
In the 17-second video clip, the woman is seen walking without clothes as some passers-by stand and watch. The footage shows two men standing outside a building and looking towards the first floor balcony. The woman is then seen jumping from the building and landing on the stairs. One of the men helps her stand on her feet while the other man walks across the road. The woman is then seen seeking help from a passer-by. The video clip shows two cars halting for a few seconds and leaving without offering any help. The woman hails an auto and leaves.
Meanwhile, one of the two men called the police control room and the police’s quick reaction team caught up with the auto rickshaw soon after it had left. The police said that by then, a woman in the neighbourhood had given the victim some clothes.
The woman was taken to Lal Bahadur Shastri hospital as she had suffered injuries in her legs because of the fall. In her statement, she accused the five BPO employees of allegedly thrashing and confining her in their flat, forcing her to consume alcohol and then taking turns to rape her. Police said the woman had jumped off the building to escape the torture.
The five men, identified as Naveen Kumar, Prateek Kumar, Vikas Mehra, Sarvjeet and Lakshya, were arrested from the crime scene. “They were booked under sections 376D (gang rape), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 377 (unnatural sex), 506 (criminal intimidation), 342 (wrongful confinement) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code. The FIR was registered at the Pandav Nagar police station,” said Omvir Singh, DCP(east). He said two of the accused were known to the woman.
A senior police officer said that the woman lived with her two children in south Delhi’s Munirka area. In her statement, she told police that she knew Kundan for past few months. On Saturday night, Kundan met her in Munirka and asked her to accompany him to his friend’s for a party.
“The woman left with him and on the way met two of his friends. The three brought her to the flat where their three other friends were already present. Kundan stepped out after sometime, leaving the woman with the five men,” said the officer quoting the woman’s complaint.
The woman reportedly told police that the five forced her to consume alcohol. When she got intoxicated, they allegedly locked her in the flat and took turns to rape her. The woman claimed that they threatened to harm her if she raised an alarm or attempted to escape from the flat.
Around 5.30 am, the woman managed to reach the balcony and jumped. The woman’s statement was later recorded before a local magistrate in which she reiterated her previous statement and maintained her allegations against the five. The men were produced before a city court that sent them to jail.