Around 36 hours after a minor was allegedly gang-raped in an upscale area of Jubilee Hills in Hyderabad, a Toyota Innova, in which the crime is suspected to have taken place, was moved out of the city. The outward appearance of the vehicle was tampered with. According to sources, there are clear signs of changes to the number plate, stickering and window film.
When the police seized the vehicle recently from an agricultural property on the outskirts of the city, it still had the bearing of a vehicle used for government duty. The car was used by one of the accused, who is related to a leader of the ruling TRS party in Telangana.
If the five accused (two adults and three minors) indeed committed the crime, then why did they take more than 36 hours to tamper with the evidence to escape identification? If the five boys are innocent, why did they hide the vehicle in a farmhouse even before the official police complaint was lodged? Most importantly, why did the police take nearly four days to trace the vehicle? These are just one of the many questions that makes the Hyderabad gang-rape case a complex affair.
On the evening of May 28, a 17-year-old girl attended a day party in one of the pubs in the city. It has been learnt that a group of high school students got together to organise the event. According to the police version, the teen attended the party on the invitation of a known person. Later, at the party, she met a few strangers. A CCTV footage from outside the pub showed her walking out with the same group towards a red Mercedes car. A little more than two hours later, she got dropped back in a Toyota Innova. After sometime, her family members picked her up from the same point.
On May 31, 48 hours after the crime, her father, who is of European origin, approached the police suspecting molestation after becoming suspicious of his daughter's behaviour and on spotting bruises on her body. The Jubilee Hills police registered a case for outraging the modesty of the victim. In the next two days, the victim was counselled by a government-run Bharosa support centre volunteers, and there she confessed facing sexual assault. The police then altered sections to treat it as a case of gang-rape and applying Pocso (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act since the victim is a minor.
According to the police, the victim couldn’t recollect names or identities of the accused, except one. The police have so far arrested four people, including two minors and two adults, and presented them before court and juvenile justice board. While one person is believed to be in the custody of the police, his arrest is yet to be recorded. Police sources have ruled out the possibility of consumption of alcohol by the victim or the accused.
Piecing together what has happened as per the police version, CCTV footage and sources related to the incident, the victim got into a red Mercedes car along with four male teens. Another two males from the same group followed them in a Toyota Innova. They took off at 5.30 pm and went to a patisserie outlet a few km away. Post a 20-30 minute halt there, the victim was shifted into the Innova car along with five males. It is unclear under what circumstances the sixth male left the group. In the next 1 to 1.5 hours, the Innova drove around the dense areas in the surroundings while stopping at isolated corners more than once. It is during this period that the crime seemed to have been committed by the accused while some of them stood guard outside the vehicle. Around 7.30-8 pm, the victim was dropped near the pub by the accused even though she was offered a lift home before the crime, as per the version of the victim.
The case quickly took political colour as the backgrounds of the accused came to the fore. One of the accused, who is a minor, is closely related to a TRS leader who holds an official post. Another accused is a close relative of a senior MIM leader. One more accused, who is a relative of former legislator, belongs to an affluent family. That apart, the name of the son of a current MLA also cropped up but police has given him a clean chit for now even though he was present at the party.
As the relatives of MIM and TRS leaders are allegedly involved in the case, BJP made use of the ammunition. State BJP workers protested outside the police station, demanding a fair trial. One of the MLAs of the saffron party, Raghunandan Rao went a step ahead and furnished a video clip as a proof of the involvement of an MIM legislator’s son. The nine-second video captured the minors and the victim in an intimate space. Though the face of the victim wasn’t visible in the video, the leader drew flak for putting out the video which was recorded by one of the accused inside the car. Congress leaders got into a war of words with Rao on social media even as the party accused the BJP, MIM and TRS of being hand-in-glove in diluting the case.
Based on the video grabs, some social media accounts tried to drum up support for the accused pointing out that the minor gave consent to the act that took place in the vehicle. Meanwhile, the police department is exercising extreme caution in dealing with the case owing to the minors involved, right from warning media to follow guidelines to interrogation and even arrests, which giving an impression that the same degree of treatment wasn’t followed in earlier rape cases like that of Disha.