Axle gangsters confess to 150 gang rapes, robberies

Sumedha Sharma

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Tribune News Service

Gurugram, October 27

The confessions made by four members the Baanwariya gang, also known as the axle gang, arrested by the Gurugram police in the Mandpura gang rape and robbery case have brought to the fore the horrific details of over 150 similar cases. They also highlight the dimly functioning of the Uttar Pradesh Police and the Haryana Police for allegedly making hasty arrests in high-profile cases.

The gangsters on Wednesday last admitted to their involvement in the Dingerheri gang rape and robbery case, challenging the arrest of four youths by the special investigating team (SIT) and the victim’s testimony against them. They also took responsibility for the Taj Expressway gang rapes and murder in which the Uttar Pradesh police had arrested four men. They also admitted to their involvement in the Aligarh highway gang rape of a mother and her daughter, a case that shook Uttar Pradesh last year.

The Taj Expressway case was reported in May this year. Four women were allegedly gang-raped and a man was shot dead by a group of robbers after deflating their car tyres. The family traveling from Jewar to Bulandshahr stopped the car on the Yamuna expressway suspecting flattened tyres and they were attacked. The police had within two days arrested four members of the Baanwariya gang though the victim family was not satisfied with the police action.

“We planted nails on the road. The driver got out of the car to check the tyres and we cornered them and took them at gunpoint to fields. We gang-raped four women and shot a man from the point blank range for resisting us. We took away their jewellery, purses and mobile phones,” reads the confession.

Similarly, the gangsters confessed to their involvement in the infamous Ghaziabad-Aligarh highway robbery and gang rape of a mother and her teenage daughter. In July last year, a 37-year-old woman and her teenage daughter were dragged out of the car along the Ghaziabad-Aligarh highway and gang-raped for over two hours when the Noida-based family of five was driving to Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

“Following the signature style of our gang, we threw an axle at the car that made a sound and the driver stopped the vehicle. We overpowered the family and took it to fields at gunpoint. We tied them, looted male members and raped the mother and the daughter,” the gang stated.

Besides, they have confessed to their involvement in over 150 incidents where farmhouses, including one of an IGP of the Uttar Pradesh Police, were attacked, robbed and their inmates gang-raped. Such incidents have been reported from various districts of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

“This is a major success as the gang has created terror on highways and had become a headache for the police of three states. They have confessed to their involvement in a large number of criminal cases and the brutality with which they committed crimes, makes their arrest a big catch for the Haryana Police,” says Commissioner of Police Sandep Khirwar.

A prized catch for Gurugram police

The Gurugram police had to take the help of an army of informers in three states over a year to catch the notorious gang members. “We were living on roads virtually till the gangsters were arrested. An incident was reported in Manesar and then in Bilaspur and we knew that these were the handiwork of one gang. We were suspecting the involvement of a tribal group and zeroed in on some groups once all victims testified that they spotted red sacred threads. A major lead, however, was achieved during the Navratras. The gang has a signature style of cooking and eating chicken at every crime spot. However, while committing a crime during the Navratras they got a chicken but left it there. We knew the gangsters were Baanwariyas. There were many Baanwariya gangs and it took an army of informers in the three states some time to lead us to these relatively newcomers in the crime world,” said SIT member Inspector Yashwant Singh.