“When she flagged down a share auto-rickshaw, little did she know that she would be gagged, beaten, gang-raped, robbed and then dumped by three men near the busy Shipra Mall, an important landmark in Indirapuram. The 19-year-old woman did not feel uncomfortable to get into a shared auto-rickshaw, as it’s a common practice in the area. The men who raped the woman later confessed to the police that had stolen the vehicle. NDTV quoted the woman saying that she cried for help for two hours but no one came forward to help her. The channel also says that the auto rickshaw passed through six police posts.
Two of the three men involved in the incident have been arrested. “All three are in their twenties,” Superintendent of Police Ghaziabad rural Jagdish Sharma said.The class 12 student, who was raped by three men, had fought hard to save herself from her assailants, police here said. Police claim the victim, who was on her way home after meeting a friend, was forced by two of the men – who posed as passengers – to sit between them. They gagged her once the vehicle developed some mechanical fault near Khoda colony, 2 km from the mall, and stopped. Fault taken care of, the three-wheeler sped towards Ghaziabad city. And once it reached Galand, the men dragged the woman out, beat her up when she resisted, and then took turns to rape her, a police officer told HT.
Around 10.30pm, the three men fled the spot, but only after they had robbed the victim of whatever cash she had on her person and her mobile phone. In her statement to the police, the girl mentioned that the rod on the window had broken; she also informed them that the vehicle had a black tarpaulin sheet that covered the windows and served as a curtain of sorts. The girl had earlier resisted a diversion in the route of the vehicle – while the men had initially told her they were headed towards Delhi, they later took a U-turn and drove in the opposite direction. When the girl questioned the change of direction in the vehicle, two of the men sat beside her and gagged her. After raping her in the vehicle, the men dragged the 19-year-old out into the fields near Bankey Bihari Dental College and again raped her, taking turns. The vehicle’s owner, Prem Singh, said three men in an inebriated condition had taken the vehicle from its driver, Pintu, in broad daylight on March 2. The men had been driving to Delhi in the vehicle, and had stopped at Khoda for some repairs to the tempo. At around 8.30 p.m., they were near Shipra Mall. After committing the crime, the men left the girl in the fields and fled. They took with them Rs.400 that the girl had with her, her ATM card and mobile phone.
