Three days after the alleged gangrape of a 22-year-old photojournalist at Shakti Mills in Mahalaxmi, the Mumbai Police Crime Branch arrested the two remaining accused on Sunday. With today's arrests, all five accused have been arrested.
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Mohammed Qasim, 18, alleged to be the prime accused, was nabbed by the police while he was sleeping on the terrace of Nair Hospital, Mumbai Central, at 3 am on Sunday. The fifth accused, Salim Ansari, 27, was arrested from Ashok Vihar in northwest Delhi. Related: Is Mumbai really a safe city for women?
Qasim and Siraj Rehman Khan, who was nabbed from Mumbra on Saturday evening, were sent to police custody till August 30 after they were produced before a magistrate at the Esplanade Court on Sunday morning.
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In the remand application, the Crime Branch said the accused had taken two pictures of the victim with their cellphones and ordered her to clean the crime scene with her dupatta. A Crime Branch officer said the victim's dupatta had been recovered from the site. "We will get DNA samples of all the five accused from the dupatta," said the officer.
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In the remand application, the Crime Branch said it needed custody of Qasim and Khan as their clothes and mobile phone had to be seized, and their blood samples were also required.
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According to Crime Branch officials, at 4 am on Sunday, they received information that Ansari was hiding in Delhi in the house of a friend's relative. An hour later, they left for Delhi and arrested Ansari from Delhi's Ashok Vihar area at about 11 am. The police said Ansari's hosts were unaware of the crime he is alleged to have committed in Mumbai and gave him shelter for three days. He told them that he was in Delhi for some work.
