High drama preceded the arrest of four persons who allegedly kidnapped a young woman and gang-raped her before their vehicle was intercepted by Delhi Police near Wazirabad flyover here in the early hours of Thursday.
A Police Control Room team spotted a Santro car near Burari roundabout around 2-30 a.m. and signalled it to stop. However, the vehicle broke through the barricade and sped away.
Immediately an alert was sounded through the PCR network suspecting that some criminal elements were at work. Police vans swung into action and barricades were erected at all the connecting roads. As the vehicle was heading towards the Wazirabad flyover, the police blocked the road by parking a PCR van in the middle. When the vehicle came to a halt, the police surrounded the car and asked the five occupants to come out.
A 24-year-old woman in the car told the police that she had been kidnapped and raped by them. The four were immediately taken into custody. They were identified as Abid (21), Shakeel (23), Irshad (30) and Lajpat Rai Sachdeva (38).
Though the police remained tight-lipped, it is learnt that the victim, who has a two-year-old child and is separated from her husband, was earlier in contact with Shakeel, a tailor. On Wednesday night, Shakeel called her to a house in Swaroop Nagar where he, along with three friends, allegedly took turns to rape her.
While there were reports that the victim was also raped in the car, the police denied this.
“Since the victim alleged that she had been raped, we have arrested the four under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code. Initially the victim refused to undergo a medical examination, but later it was done with her consent,” said a senior police officer.
