The Haryana Police on Tuesday arrested three more people, including another Army officer, in connection with the alleged rape a 19-year-old woman in Rewari district earlier this month, The Hindu reported. With this, all eight accused in the case have been held.
The men – Naveen alias Nikku, Abhishek and Manjit – are accused of concealing information about the alleged crime and helping the main accused when they were evading the police, PTI reported. Naveen, who joined the Army earlier this year, was caught in Odisha and is the second Army official to be arrested in the case. On Sunday, the police arrested Army man Pankaj and college student Manish. The week before, one more of the three main accused wasarrested along with his two accomplices.
As many as three men had reportedly raped the woman after kidnapping her while she was on her way to a coaching class. The woman’s father had said earlier that though she has named three people in the complaint, around eight to 10 people may have sexually assaulted her.
Abhishek, who is from Haryana’s Mahendragarh district, and Manjit, a resident of Rajasthan, allegedly provided shelter, food, monetary help and a motorcycle to Manish and Pankaj. According to the police, Navin “is a government employee and was also present at the spot where the incident took place”. He did not inform the police about the alleged crime despite knowing about it.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, a local court turned down the bail petition of one of the accused, Sanjeev, a medical practitioner who allegedly attended to the victim’s injuries after she was sexually assaulted. His lawyer Sandeep Singh, however, claimed he was not involved in the crime and the Special Investigation Team looking into the case had not listed specific charges against him in the remand paper.
“Sanjeev had discharged his professional duty in treating the victim,” The Hindu quoted Sandeep Singh as saying. “No recoveries are to be made from my client.”
The court sent another accused – Nishu – to jail after the end of his four-days police remand.
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