BHUBANESWAR: Bhubaneswar police on Wednesday arrested three persons for the alleged gangrape of a 27-year-old woman in her apartment three days ago.
Two of the accused, police said, had targeted the victim with the help of their third associate and made a failed attempt to enter the victim’s flat a day before.
The three were identified as Tukuna Nayak, Bikash Naik and Jaga Singh, all in their mid-20s. Bikash and Jaga have criminal antecedents and faced externment proceedings under section 110 of CrPC.
Investigation revealed the victim stayed in Nilamadhab Niwas, an affordable housing project of the state government for slum dwellers in Niladri Vihar area under Maitree Vihar police limits. Tukuna, a beneficiary of the housing scheme, lived in the apartment while the other two used to frequent his place.
Police said Bikash and Jaga were reportedly stalking the woman, employed with a private organisation, for the last few days. On September 28 night, Bikash and Jaga spotted the woman in her balcony on the first floor. After a few minutes, she went inside but forgot her phone outside. The duo climbed on to the first floor and attempted to trespass into the woman’s flat through the balcony but found the door locked. Upon finding her mobile phone, they stole it and fled.
Bikash and Jaga visited Tukuna’s house again the next evening. At about 2 am, on September 30, both of them again scaled the woman’s balcony wall and found the doors open. They went in, terrorised the victim at knife point and stole a pair of earrings and another mobile phone.
The woman’s ordeal did not end here as Bikash and Jaga took turns to rape her even as her two-year-old daughter was sleeping in the bedroom. Police tracked down the miscreants through one of the stolen mobile phones and apprehended them.
Bikash, Jaga and Tukuna are all school dropouts and work as dance choreographer, glazier and an auto-rickshaw driver respectively.
“Tukuna was arrested because he was part of Bikash and Jaga’s plan to commit the heinous crime. He did not go inside the woman’s flat as she could have recognised him,” said Police Commissioner Suresh Dev Datta Singh.