DEHRAHDUN, Aug 18: The police here Sunday arrested five people in connection with the alleged gang-rape of a teenage girl in a Uttarakhand government bus after it arrived at the busstand here from Delhi, officials said.
Police said those arrested include the driver and the conductor of the government bus. He said the incident occurred on August 12 at the busstahd here and the police were informed about it Saturday evening.
The police swung into action immediately and identified the roadways bus by scanning CCTV cameras and arrested the five accused including its driver and the conductor, he said.The accused have been identified as: Dharmendra Kumar (32) and Rajpal (57), both residents of Buggawala in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar; Devendra (52), a resident of Bhagwanpur in Haridwar; Rajesh Kumar Sonkar (38), a resident of Patel Nagar here; and Ravi Kumar (34), a resident of Nawabganj in Farrukhabad district of Uttar Pradesh.
He said that Dhamendra Kumar is the driver of the bus used in the incident and Devendra is the conductor. Ravi Kumar and Rajpal are drivers of other buses while Sonkar is a cashier of the Uttarakhand Roadways posted at the busstand.
The police officer said the bus used in the incident has been impounded and a forensic team is collecting evidence from inside.
Police said the incident came to light after the Dehradun Child Welfare Committee (CWC) was informed about a girl, aged of 16-17, sitting alone on a bench at platform number 12 of the ISBT here late night on August 12.
Police said that during preliminary interrogation, the girl told them she is an orphan and that she is a resident of Punjab.Later, she told them that she is a resident of Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh. She first went to Delhi from Moradabad and then took a bus from Kashmiri Gate in Delhi and to Dehradun, where she was allegedly raped.
Police said the girl kept changing her statements initially, but on interrogation she gave information about her family.
Police contacted the family and found out that the victim’s parents are alive.
They were also told that the girl had fled her house in past also without informing anyone. (PTI)
