New Delhi: On October 19, 2022, the news of a horrific gangrape case of a 37-year-old Delhi woman in Ghaziabad went viral.
The woman had allegedly been missing for five days. It was claimed that her attackers repeatedly raped her and inserted an iron rod into her private parts and later dumped her body on a street. The woman was admitted to a hospital in Delhi and the police launched a drive to arrest the culprits.
Swati Maliwal, chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women tweeted the story, comparing it with the 2012 Nirbhaya case given its eerily similar details.
Later, the police in Ghaziabad arrested five men but their names initially remained undisclosed in the media. Soon after, however, multiple handles posted the names of the five accused. The issue was quickly given a communal spin by a section of the media and Hindutva influencers, since all the five men accused of the crime were Muslims.
The national spokesperson of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad – an organisation founded by the RSS in 1964 – said the accused were part of an ‘Islamic Sex Gang’. Large crowds of right-wing activists protested the incident and raised inflammatory slogans.
On Thursday, however, the Ghaziabad police announced that the investigation it conducted had led it to conclude that the woman along with some accomplices had faked the incident to settle a property dispute with the accused. In a detailed video thread and press statement, senior superintendent of police Muniraj Gobu pointed to what he said were grave inconsistencies in the version of the woman.
When a policewoman was sent to the hospital in Ghaziabad and met the victim in the presence of a lady doctor, she allegedly refused to undergo a medical examination even after much persuasion. The victim was referred to Meerut Medical College but she chose to get admitted at GTB Hospital Delhi. Dr. Diksha Sharma, Superintendent of Police (Crime), Ghaziabad, who herself is a student of medical sciences, met all the concerned officials in GTB Hospital and gathered in-depth information. The investigation is headed by Mrs. Alok Dubey, Circle Officer Nagar, II Ghaziabad, and is being supervised by Dr. Sharma.
The SIT’s findings
In the course of investigation, the police said it had also come to light that the victim’s friend, Azad Tehseen – who has a criminal record – switched off the victim’s mobile after her supposed disappearance. Around the same time, his network location was found near the spot where the victim was found. Evidence has also been received from Azad’s phone to the effect that an attempt was made to circulate news of this rape in an exaggerated fashion. There is also evidence of payment via Paytm for its dissemination, the police said. A separate case for Aadhar forgery has been registered against him as well.
According to the police, Azad, along with his friends Gaurav Sharan and Iqbal Afzal, hatched this conspiracy to resolve a land dispute by framing the five accused in a gang-rape case. Even before this, the three had tried and failed to frame the men in criminal cases, so they allegedly hatched this conspiracy to seize the property.
The three accused are now in custody and Gobu said a confession made by them was consistent with the “scientific evidence”. The matter would now be taken to trial, he added.