Noida woman, daughter raped near Bulandshahr highway

Police have detained 15 people over the past two days for the alleged gangrape of a woman and her teenage daughter in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr district.

UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav asked the principal secretary of the home department and the director general police on Sunday to monitor the probe into the case, which has sent shock waves across the nation.

A Noida-based family of five people, including the 13-year-old girl and her mother, was headed to their native place in Shahjahanpur in a car late on Friday night. Miscreants waylaid them on the Ghaziabad-Aligarh highway, dragged the woman and her daughter out of the vehicle and raped them for over two hours, the family complained.

Police registered a case of robbery, rape and wrongful confinement. Senior officials rushed to the spot, and the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force was roped in for the investigation. The family has identified the main accused with the help of a photograph.

“Fifteen suspects have been nabbed for interrogation...hope that the accused would be arrested soon,” Daljit Singh, additional director general ( law and order), said.

Miscreants threw a piece of metal at the car when it was passing through Dostpur village at 1:30am, forcing the driver to stop, police said. When the driver got out to examine the damage, the criminals, who were hiding on the roadside, overpowered him and allegedly forced him to drive the car off the road and into the fields.

The gang then tied up the male members and assaulted the woman and her daughter. The miscreants fled after robbing the family of cash and other valuables. The victims managed to reach the Dehat Kotwali police station in the morning.

“A detailed questioning is underway... and we have got substantial leads so far. Our teams are working on the case,” said Vaibhav Krishna, senior superintendent of police, Bulandshahr.

Laxmi Singh, inspector general of police of the Meerut Range, too said: “We have important clues.”

Police suspect the involvement of Bawariyas -- a nomadic tribe in northern India --- in the crime. “The modus operandi of criminals points towards tribal Bawariya gangs, though we have been working on all possible angles to crack the case,” SSP Krishna said over phone from Bulandshahr.

Kotwali Dehat sation officer Ram Sain Singh was relieved from the charge of the case after police reported his negligence in the case, the SSP said.

India brought in more stringent laws against sexual offenders after the fatal gangrape of a student in Delhi in December 2012, but they have failed to stem the tide of violence against women across the country.