The Uttar Pradesh Police on Friday said they were not ruling out personal enmity as a reason behind Thursday’s murder of a man and alleged gang rape of four women in Jewar.
“It is too early to comment on whether it was personal enmity or the handiwork of an organised gang. We are probing both angles,” said SSP (Gautam Budh Nagar) Love Sharma, addressing a press conference here.
Cops detain five men
The personal enmity angle emerged after the police had detained five men for questioning in connection with the case, only to release them later. The basis of the detention, said Mr. Sharma, was a media comment that the woman had made naming some of them.
The confusion, the police later said, was because one of the victim had told the media that she had identified three of the six men as her neighbours, a statement she went on to retract a day later.
The FIR, which was registered on the statement of one of the men in the vehicle, said the women victims could recognise the perpetrators.
It was through media reports that police came to know that the women had suspected the role of neighbours and detained the aforementioned men late on Thursday night, said another police officer, adding that five of these men were picked up for questioning by the local police and then again by the U.P. special task force.
According to the police, the woman later clarified that she named the neighbour(s) out of sheer anger.
On questioning the five men, the police uncovered a property related dispute between the two families.
Prime suspects
On the progress of the probe thus far, the police said that the gangs active on Yamuna Expressway and adjoining areas remain the prime suspects.
“We will get a final statement recorded before the magistrate on Saturday,” said Mr. Sharma. Several teams are probing the incident, which took place in a field alongside the road linking Jewar to Bulandshahr, barely 1.2 km off the Yamuna Expressway on Thursday. A scrap dealer was murdered and four women of his family were gangraped by six men.
