After a brief gunfight on Sunday, the Gautam Budh Nagar police have arrested four men in connection with the gruesome Jewar gang-rape and murder case. One of the suspects suffered a bullet injury and has been admitted to a hospital.
The four men have been arrested for allegedly abducting a family of eight from a highway in Jewar, gangraping four women and murdering their male relative on May 25.
A U-turn
In a volte-face, the police — who had initially said that doctors found no evidence of sexual assault — said in a press conference on Sunday that the accused had confessed to sexually assaulting the women, and that forensic tests have established that there was semen on the women’s clothes.
“We now have to test whether the semen was of one of the arrested men. But prima facie there was sexual assault,” said Senior Superintendent of Police (Gautam Budh Nagar) Love Kumar.
The arrested men were identified by some of the male relatives of the victims, said the police.
Giving details about the early morning operation, Mr. Kumar said that a police team had received a tip-off that six criminals would be near Sabota village underpass. A joint team of local policemen and Crime Branch officers then laid a trap.
The car in which the suspects were travelling was intercepted. “However, the occupants tried to flee and opened fire at the officers, who retaliated. During the exchange of fire, one of the accused suffered a bullet injury to his leg,” said Mr. Kumar.
Two accused escaped
During the gunfight, two accused managed to flee while four others were nabbed.
Our team tried to give a chase and fired in the dark in an attempt to get them to stop, but the two managed to get away, said the police.
The police said that the men were likely in the area looking for another vulnerable family passing through Jewar. The accused have been identified as Ashok (32), a resident of Najafgarh in Delhi; Rakesh (25) and Deepak (23), residents of Jhajjar in Haryana; and 40-year-old Jai Singh, a resident of Alwar.
The two who managed to escape have been identified as Monu and Sanjay, both residents of Alwar. Ashok was injured during the gunfight.
On May 25, eight people were held hostage and robbed by six persons. The four women who were allegedly gangraped are in the age group of 28 to 52 years.
