NEW DELHI: A phone number found in a selfie posted by a rape accused on his Facebook account helped the Delhi Police arrest him from Gurugram, the police said here on Sunday. The accused had been on the run for over three years.
“Rahul Victor, 24, a driver, was arrested from his residence in Sikanderpur in Gurugram on Sunday. In 2015, he had allegedly sexually assaulted a girl known to him after offering her a cold drink laced with an intoxicated substance,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police Vijay Kumar.
“After the victim lost consciousness, Victor raped her and took photographs and made video clips of it, which he later used to blackmail the victim and repeat the crime on several occasions. He also threatened to make the photographs viral on the internet. A resident of south Delhi, the victim on February 10, 2016 filed a case against Victor with the Delhi Police South District,” Kumar said.
The search for Victor was even more complicated as the police had no access to his phone records because he was using an Aircel sim at the time. The company subsequently shut down.
After scanning over 150 accounts, the police finally found Victor’s selfie in one of them. “The picture was taken in front of a shop next to a restaurant in which the phone number of the shopkeeper could be seen,” he said.
“The police contacted the shopkeeper and were told that Victor worked as a delivery boy in the restaurant in 2017 and stayed in Gurugram,” he said.
(With agency inputs)