A disagreement turned into a tragic night for a 16-year-old student from Uttar Pradesh who was allegedly subjected to a brutal gang rape aboard a moving sleeper bus that travelled nearly 47 kilometres across the national capital before being abandoned.
The incident reportedly occurred on the night of August 4th, in a sleeper bus in the Kashmira Gate area. The accused, identified as the bus driver Kuldeep, and the conductor Sandeep, have been arrested in connection with the case. According to the police sources, the victim is a student of class 11, hailing from Mainpuri, district of Uttar Pradesh.
Detailing the sequence of the events that took place on August 4th, police officials said the student left her home without informing the parents after a disagreement and was on her way to visit her cousin in Noida.
Due to heavy rains and darkness, she mistakenly got off at Pari Chowk. Just then an empty sleeper bus passed by. As the victim sought assistance after getting stranded in heavy rain and signaled the bus to stop, it halted.
Claiming the bus was going to Noida, the bus conductor and the driver let her board the empty bus. It is alleged that as soon as the bus started moving, the driver made obscene advances towards the victim. According to the victim, the driver and the conductor subsequently raped and threatened to kill her when she resisted.
The accused then dropped the victim off at the ring road near the Kashmira Gate bus terminal late at night and fled the scene.
The brutally injured student contacted the Kashmira Gate police and reported the entire incident.
The accused have been arrested from a bus parking lot in Timarpur and police seized the sleeper bus used for the crime, which is undergoing forensic examination.
According to the police sources, the accused took the bus to a workshop in Surajpur for repairs following a mechanical breakdown.
A detailed probe into the investigation revealed the accused were taking the empty bus to Tripura after the repairs were completed. They then exploited the vehicle’s contained interior to conceal the crime during the late night journey.
Since it was a sleeper bus and curtains were allowed for such buses, passerbys could not witness the crime, which became a upper hand for the accused to assault the teen.
Further investigation in underway.