Mumbai, March 25: Fearing that the 12-year-old rape victim and her aunt could be attacked by the absconding accused, police have, at present, kept them at an undisclosed location.
Police also plan to recover the mobile phone that the child’s cousin Dhawal Bapat and his friend Raju Sharma had used to film their act at a Kurla lodge. The girl says the video was used to blackmail and rape her on several occasions. Police plan to send the mobile phone to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) where it would be checked. If the accused have deleted the video, the lab will recover it.
Meanwhile, officers at Saki Naka police station say they have been receiving several calls from people of Subhash Nagar who claim that many of those booked in the case are innocent.
Senior police inspector SR Dhanedhar of Saki Naka police station said, “The family and relatives of the accused have been claiming that the victim is trying to frame them in the case. The accused, Jamuna Prasad Sharma, 71, claimed the girl had taken his name only because of some property dispute going on between her aunt’s and his family.” Dhanedhar added, “But, the girl is very confident while speaking and we have questioned her several times about the sequence of events. She has not retracted any of her statements, which proves she is not acting on anyone’s instructions but is disclosing things that she actually faced.”
A senior police officer said, “The accused may have got a whiff about the police complaint and fled. It is suspected that they may try to harm or threaten the victim and her aunt.”
—Agencies