08 August,2014 08:57 AM IST | | Shiva Devnath
A criminal who had been externed from Bandra, kidnapped a 17-yr-old girl from her shanty and took her in a stolen auto to Mankhurd, where he gangraped her with two of his accomplices
In an audacious act, a criminal who had been externed from Bandra kidnapped a 17-year-old girl from her shanty in the area and took her in a stolen auto to Mankhurd, where he gangraped her with two of his accomplices.
While the survivor reached Bandra police station around 10 am yesterday, the police did not register an FIR until 7 pm, giving the accused enough time to flee.
The orphaned girl, who only has a younger brother she can call family, was kidnapped from her shanty in Bandra around 2 am yesterday by Arif Pathan aka Mulla, who was well known to the girl as they used to live in the same locality.
The survivor told the police that Pathan forced her to sit in an auto with five men, including him, and took her to a slum area in Mankhurd. She said some of the men were from her locality and three of them took turns to rape her.
She managed to escape from the men's clutches early in the morning and reached her slum, where a neighbour scolded her for leaving her younger brother alone in the house in the night. She narrated the incident to her neighbour, who took her to the Bandra police station to register a complaint.
Police failure?
The survivor was picked up from a slum in Bandra which is teeming with people, and where a police patrol happens almost every 10 minutes.
The mastermind behind the rape is a known criminal who had been externed from the suburb because of his past activities. Despite the girl reaching the police station around 10 am, an FIR of kidnapping and gangrape was registered only around 7 pm, and by the time the police got around to looking for the accused, they had already fled.
"The girl gave us the number of the auto rickshaw used to kidnap her. When we verified the auto's registration details, we found out that it had been stolen from Kherwadi recently, indicating that the gangrape was planned," said a police officer.
"The victim belongs to a very poor family and lives with her younger brother. She does not have any document from which we can establish her age, but from her statement and those of people known to her, we are assuming that she is a minor," said Satyanarayan Chaudhary, DCP (Zone IX).
Senior Police Inspector Ramchandra Dawle said "Till now, no one has been arrested and all the accused are wanted. We have sent the girl for a medical examination and registered a case of kidnapping and gangrape, among other charges."
