A translator's assistance and the visual description of a turban have helped the police identify two auto-rickshaw drivers, also brothers, who allegedly molested a Nigerian girl before pushing her off the running vehicle on Friday.
Four days of probe involving scanning the footage of 17 CCTV cameras, has led to the arrest of a 46-year-old auto-rickshaw driver even as his brother continues to abscond. The 22-year-old Nigerian girl, pursuing her second year graduation from a Delhi University college in West Delhi, was out to visit her friend’s home around 1.30 a.m. on Friday when she was molested.
She had just gotten into a hired auto-rickshaw in Tilak Nagar when another man entered the vehicle and sat next to her. The two men allegedly took turns to molest her in the running vehicle. When she resisted, they pushed her out of the running vehicle, leaving her injured.
Since the crime spot was not an auto stand, police were clueless about the identity of the suspects. Led by Tilak Nagar SHO Raj Kumar, head constable Sunil and constable Himmat scanned 17 CCTV cameras in the area, but had no luck.
“Only one CCTV had captured the auto, but the registration number was unreadable. The woman’s frequent use of local language and her heavy-accented broken English turned out to be an additional barrier for the investigating officers,” Pushpendra Kumar, DCP (West), told The Hindu .
A South Indian woman married to a Nigerian national was roped in to help with the language. The victim conveyed to the police that her assailants were possibly injured in their heads as they were wearing “bandages”. A better communication with the victim led the police to realise that the “bandages” were turbans.
The woman was then taken to some turban shops to identify the kind of turbans worn by the suspects. Once that was ascertained, police used other visual descriptions provided by the victim to conduct local interrogation and identify the suspects.
Accused Aagya Pal Singh was subsequently nabbed from his home on Monday. He tried to mislead the police, but admitted to his role under sustained interrogation, said an officer.
“The arrested suspect was driving the auto-rickshaw while his brother Baljeet Singh was the one who sat next to the victim. Finding the woman alone in the dead of the night, the brothers tried to take advantage of her,” said the officer.
