Ahmedabad, June 13: The diamond city, considered one of the safest for women, woke up to a rude shock on Friday when a teenaged girl belonging to a well-known family was gangraped around daybreak. Two of the alleged rapists are sons of policemen.
The 17-year-old class XII student was going to tuition classes along with a friend when three people tricked her into a car near Civil Hospital crossroads at 5.30 am.
Worse, the entire crime was captured by the culprits on a cell phone, with the idea of blackmailing the victim.
Surat police arrested three persons, all aged between 25 and 30 years, and also recovered the video clip from them.
The victim left home at 5 am for classes near Majura Gate and met a friend near Civil Hospital crossroads.
While the two were exchanging books on the roadside, where they had parked their two-wheelers, three persons drew close in an Opel Astra car and asked both of them to get in.
The driver told them he was a police official and that they would have to accompany them to the police station. Once the scared kids got in, the car drove towards Dumas beach — a lonely stretch at that hour.
The three took turns to rape the girl on the back seat while the other two kept the teenaged boy pinned down on the front seat. After an hour-long ordeal, they were dropped at the same crossroads at 6.45 am.
The victim’s friend went to school from there while the girl returned home. She first washed her clothes, which may have destroyed some evidence. However, unable to bear the trauma, she broke down before family members.
The family immediately approached the police which got her medically examined. Tests proved she was raped. A forensic examination of the car was on.
About eight hours later, the accused — Shahid Saiyad, Tariq Qutubuddin Saiyad and Abu Bakr Shaikh — were nabbed from their residences in Habibsha Maholla in Kadarsha Ni Naal.
Shahid’s father NG Saiyad is a police inspector in Dholka while Tariq’s father Qutubuddin Saiyad is a head constable in Mahidharpura police station in Surat.
While Bakr runs a mobile phone business, the other two are vagabonds. There are fears the incident may take communal overtones.
—Agencies–