Nagpur: A gang involved in the rape of a 21 year old school teacher has been busted on Tuesday. However it later revealed that it is the same gang which was involved in series of sexual assaults and robberies along the Outer Ring Road. As much as 78 offences have been registered separately against all of these 8 members on previous occasions.
The gang operated in a peculiar manner in which they target couples, posing as cops on patrol and used to rob them. They usually robbed the male and raped the female member and left them threatened and warned. Ironically most of the crimes committed by them went unreported as couples usually avoided approaching police out of social embarrassment.
Some of these gang members had recently lifted a 21 year old teacher on the pretext of inquiring her and raped her at knife point in city’s Kalamna area. The goons had also picked her boyfriend along with the girl and later dropped him midway. They took the girl to desolate place and forced themselves upon her. The 21-year old girl is teacher by profession and her boyfriend is pursuing BCCA.
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It so happened that one of the gang members Mohammed Afroze Ziyauddin Pathan, 38, was rounded up Mumbai’s Arey Colony in Goregaon (E) along with his four other accomplices. His gang has been active for about a year. Its activities started after Pathan was acquitted from murder by High court. One of the accused Pundlik Bhoyar (34), whose wife is a lawyer, was traced in Nagpur. Bhoyar’s wife had last year alleged molestation against cops. Ashish Ingley was also netted from city.
Police said that Afroze, mastermind of the gang, was with Sudarshan Maheskar (37), Anil Ingley (35) and Ashwin Danode (23) on the day they had exploited the teacher. Ashish, Rameshwar Pradhan and Akash Motghare, also part of the gang, were basically involved in other offences. They had also confessed to a burglary at Ganeshpeth worth Rs 6 lakh last month. Pradhan too was netted in Mumbai.
City police chief KK Pathak and Joint CP Anup Kumar Singh hinted at requesting government to appoint special public prosecutor in the case. The police may also put the arrested members under Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA). “Several teams of crime branch and local police stations were engaged in cracking case. Almost 40 personnel were involved,” said the CP. He hailed the contribution of cyber crime cell in the case.
The cops produced Afroze, Sudarshan, Pundlik, Anil and Ashwin before the judicial magistrate first class SD Chakkar on Tuesday. The five, who were arrested on Monday, were remanded to police custody till December 30. The court observed that such cases raised the feeling of insecurity among the women and needed to be probed thoroughly. Assistant public prosecutor MP Burange and law officer Shashank Choubey argued for PCR till January 5 next year. Choubey drew parallels of the case with Shakti Mills rape case in Mumbai before the court. The cops want to profile the DNA of gang members.
Afroze and his gang admitted having approached the teacher and his friend posing as cops at an isolated spot place along the Kapsi overbridge on Outer Ring Road. They whisked away the couple on the pretext of taking them to police chowky. Afroze is learnt to have forced the woman to hand him over her scooterette. The goon later compelled the woman to ride pillion with him on the scooterette with Danode as the third rider. The woman’s friend was forced to sit between two others on another two-wheeler following Afroze.
The teacher’s male friend fought with the goons and freed himself. Afroze and Danode did not come to know of this initially. The male friend later alerted two traffic constables. The constables alerted the control room, Kalamna police and rest of adjoining posts. However, this did not prevent the gang from taking the young teacher to a secluded place and raping her. She was even taken by Afroze on the scooter after the heinous act and dropped near her home.
… Ravikant Kamble
