LUCKNOW: A 19-year-old girl in lodged an FIR with police claiming that she was raped by 23 people who shot the videos of the act within 7 days since she left home in Varanasi on March 29.
In her written complaint, the victim, named 12 of the accused while the remaining 11 were described as unidentified men. However, the police have taken six persons into custody in connection with the incident.
The victim, who is preparing for admission into a sports course, had reportedly gone missing from her home on March 29.
Significantly, the girl’s family filed a missing person complaint on April 4, and she was found the same day. However, then no complaint of sexual assault was registered either by the victim or her family.
On April 6, the family approached the Lalpur Pandeypur police station to lodge a formal complaint by her mother based on which an FIR was registered by the police.
Police confirmed that a total of 23 men were named in the FIR, of which 11 were unidentified.
The police confirmed that they were questioning staff members of the hookah bar and were examining CCTV footage from the area to verify the girl's account and identify those involved in the alleged crime.
The complainant, however, refused to undergo a medical examination. She maintained that she was sexually assaulted by the accused after being drugged at separate locations during a span of seven days from March 29 to April 4 when she was away from home.
As part of preliminary investigations, police are on the lookout for the people named as accused in the complaint and verifying specific details mentioned in the FIR.
DCP Chandra Kant Meena of Varuna Zone said the girl had initially gone out on her own with a friend, and the investigation was on. He also clarified that, despite some media reports, the girl was not a minor.
As per the details of the complaint, the victim has five siblings. After class 12th, the victim had been taking part in athletic events at the school and college level. Currently, along with studies, the victim had been working in the spa centre of a city hotel.
The complainant claimed that her daughter (victim) used to be away from home often for a couple of days in connection with her work. However, this time, she was away for a week.
In the complaint, the victim’s mother claimed that after finishing her work on March 29, while the victim was returning home, she met one of her friends, Raj Vishwakarma, who took her for an outing.
The complainant claimed that Raj took the victim to a hotel where he raped her and shot the video of it. On March 30, when the victim tried to go home, Raj called his friends Sameer, Ayush Singh and others and they asked the victim to stay back in the hotel or else they would make her video with Raj viral on social media. Then she was raped by all of them.
The complainant claimed that the perpetrators had taken away the mobile phone of the victim, so she could not call anyone.
After keeping the victim in that hotel for a day, the perpetrators called some more persons named Suhail, Sajid, Anmol, Danish and Zaheer. They made the victim sit in a car and took her to Continental Café in Maldahiya locality in a sub-cautious state as they had forcibly made her sniff some intoxicated substance. They assaulted her sexually and called more persons, including Imran, Shoaib and Zaib, who also took turns with her.
In the meantime, one of the accused Sajid made the victim sit in a car with 5-6 persons and they raped her in moving four-wheeler before throwing her out in the dead of April 3 night.
So far, around half a dozen persons including Sajid, Ayush Singh, Danish Khan, Anmol, Imran and one more person, were taken into custody by the police in connection with the case.