Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, November 24
A week after a 22-year-old girl was gangraped in the forest area of Sector 53 here, the UT police today arrested the accused auto driver while raids are being conducted to nab his two aides.
SSP Nilambari Vijay Jagdale said the accused was identified as Mohammad Irfan (29), a native of Ambedkar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh and residing in shanties near the Dabur godown at Zirakpur for the past around 12 years. The accused had changed his looks to evade arrest.
The SSP said the accused was arrested from the area under the Sector 49 police station. “The accused was interrogated at the police station. Later, the entire route by which the accused brought the victim to Sector 53 on the day of the incident was reconstructed,” she added.
SSP Jagdale said the accused had revealed the names of the other two accused as Garib, a native of Faridabad in UP, and Poppu, a native of Sultanpur, UP. Cops were verifying the claim. The other two accused also stay in Zirakpur and were on the run. Efforts were on to arrest them, the SSP added.
On the day of the incident, the three accused had consumed liquor at Ram Darbar and decided to rape some passenger.
The police have recovered the auto used in the crime. The police said the accused had hidden the auto after the incident. The accused claimed to have taken the three-wheeler on rent from a Banur resident and purchased it later by paying some money to the owner.
The SSP said the test identification parade of the accused had to be conducted so that the victim identified him.
The case
On November 17, the victim, a native of Dehradun, had hired an auto from Sector 37 for Mohali. The auto already had two male occupants, who were known to the driver. The auto was driven to a forest area in Sector 53 where the trio gangraped her. The images of the accused were caught in a CCTV camera installed at the Sector 42 petrol pump where the accused had stopped to get the fuel tank refilled. A case of gang rape was registered.
Accused father of 2 girls
The accused auto driver, Mohammad Irfan, has four children — two sons and as many daughters. His wife gave birth to the fourth child a boy around five days back. Irfan’s parents claimed that their son was arrested from Zirakpur and he was innocent.
How police traced the accused
Cops at the Sector 49 police station were briefed about the marks on the auto-rickshaw, which could prove helpful in identification of the auto. Constable Ashok Kumar posted at the police station as a computer operator, who was constructing a house at Baltana in Zirakpur, showed the photographs of the accused to the contractor he had hired for the construction work. The contractor identified the auto driver, following which Ashok shared the information with Inspector Ranjodh Singh, SHO of the police station. The SHO constituted a team and the accused was nabbed.
Crime Branch had just missed the catch
Sources said the crime branch had questioned the owner of the auto, who had revealed that he had given his auto on rent to Mohammad Irfan. A team of the crime branch then questioned the accused. Since Irfan had changed his looks, cops could not relate him to the case. As he didn’t resemble with the CCTV grab of the accused, he was let off.
Hunt on to nab aides: SSP
The accused, Mohammad Irfan, has been arrested from the area under the Sector 49 police station. During interrogation, he revealed the names of the other two accused. Efforts are on to arrest them. — Nilambari Vijay Jagdale, UT SSP