NEW DELHI: A day after three men were arrested, including one after an encounter, on Tuesday for allegedly gangraping a 17-year-old girl at Astha Kunj Park, the Delhi Police is investigating whether the arrested accused had a hand in similar incidents at the location.
The incident occurred between 7.15 pm and 8 pm on Monday. According to the police, the victim had gone to the Kalkaji temple for darshan on Monday on her birthday along with a friend, also 17 years old, and later went to the park where three accused—Asif, Hemant, a lawyer, and his brother Mukesh, a final-year BSc math student—posed as policemen. They separated the girl from her friend and later raped her.
One of them allegedly threatened her with a firearm and knife and sexually assaulted her. Thereafter, two other accused also allegedly sexually assaulted her.
The police have scanned footage from over 300 CCTV cameras, including cameras around the park as well as those installed on routes leading to and from the location, and arrested all three accused, including two siblings, involved in the incident. One of them, Asif, was nabbed following an encounter on early Tuesday. The accused have known one another for about three to four years.
A police officer said that they are verifying whether any similar complaints or incidents involving the accused had taken place in the past. Furthermore, a probe is under way to determine if any such incidents had occurred in the park previously but gone unreported as victims did not file complaints due to fear of social stigma and public humiliation. Police are also questioning locals and residents living near the park.
An initial probe has found that one of the accused had been fired from a gym about a month ago allegedly for bad behaviour. Police are also examining the mobile phones of the accused and other technical evidence relevant for the investigation of the case. It is also being ascertained which parts of the park guards had deployed at the time of the incident.