2 key accused in Rewari rape case arrested

◗ Armyman Pankaj and another key accused Manish were nabbed from Satnali in Mahendergarh district in the morning near a dhaba

Chandigarh/ Rewari, Sep 23: Ten days after a 19year- old woman from Rewari district was gangraped, the Haryana police on Sunday arrested two key accused in the case, including an Army man, who kept changing their hideouts when they were on the run.

Army man Pankaj and another key accused Manish were nabbed from Satnali in Mahendergarh district in the morning near a dhaba, head of special investigation team, which had been set up to probe into the case, said briefing the media at Rewari after their arrest.

“The two arrested accused had buried their phone somewhere. Later, with the help of petty criminals they hid at dhanis ( hamlets), took shelter in dharamshalas and they slept in fields and hills,” SIT chief Naazneen Bhasin, who was flanked by ADGP Shrikant Jadhav, told reporters.

Anyone who might have sheltered the accused during the period they remained on run will also have to face action, she said.

Without sharing the specific locations of their hideouts, Ms Bhasin, however, said they kept wandering, including along the Haryana-Rajasthan border.

Earlier, on September 16, the Haryana police had arrested the main accused, Nishu, besides two other accused in the case.

Ms Bhasin said during investigations, Nishu’s role has emerged as “mastermind” in the case.

Replying to a question, Bhasin said some of the accused have been involved in organised crime incidents in the past.

Nishu is currently in police remand while other accused Sanjeev and Deendayal have been remanded to judicial custody.

Sanjeev was a medical practitioner who had attended to the woman first after the crime and Deendayal was the owner of the property where she was allegedly gangraped, the Harayana police had said.

The woman was abducted at a bus stop in Kanina town in neighbouring Mahendragarh district on September 12 while she was on the way to a coaching class, the police had earlier said.

She was allegedly drugged and gangraped at a room housing a tubewell for irrigation.

When asked why the police took this much time to nab the accused, Bhasin said various cells of the police including ones engaged in gathering ground level intelligence, technical surveillance and interrogation of arrested accused, were at job and processing all this data does take time.

She claimed the SIT worked round- the- clock in the case and “in shortest humanly possible time the SIT has made a breakthrough”.