While the city police on Tuesday arrested two new suspects in the six-year-old's alleged rape case in a Bangalore school, it cleared the earlier suspect, Muhammed Mustafa's name from the case citing his absence from school when the incident took place.
The Bangalore police yesterday arrested two gym instructors, Lal Giri Indragiri, 21, and Wasim Pasha, 28 in connection with the Vibgyor School rape case. It booked both the accused under Section 376D of IPC for alleged gang rape of the minor within the school premises, a crime they reportedly confessed to have committed.
"Indragiri and Pasha were directly involved in the gang-rape. On interrogation, they said when the children left the gym, they asked the girl to stay back, and then raped her. All evidence required to arrest them has been taken into account," Times of India quoted Police Commissioner M N Reddi.
Mustafa's arrest
The Bangalore police had arrested the skating instructor Mustafa on 20 July, reportedly stating that he was the prime accused in the heinous crime. The police termed him as a "paedophile" and said that he has been arrested based on the "circumstantial evidence available at that point of time," according to Deccan Chronicle.
Police Commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar, who was replaced by Reddi in the mid of the investigation, reportedly said that they arrested him based on the child's identification of the seven suspects, he being one of them.
Auradkar had added that they found laptops with pornographic videos of schoolchildren in it.
After the arrest of the gym instructors, the police cleared Mustafa in the six-year-old's rape case due to lack of evidence to support his direct involvement, although, the police has turned the investigation on him based on the complaints from another school he worked with previously.
"Mustafa was earlier booked for misbehaviour at Deen's Academy. That case will continue. In the present case, investigations have ruled out his direct involvement," The New Indian Express quoted Reddi.
Investigation messed up?
Mustafa's arrest came at the backdrop of suspicion due to certain evidences—the pornographic videos on his laptop, past complaints against him—with no strong evidence to support his involvement.
Meanwhile, Indragiri and Pasha have been arrested based on concrete proofs—identification by the victim, the CCTV footage that showed both the accused entering the gym and emerging 35 minutes later with the girl.
The new arrests and Mustafa being let off reflects that the Bangalore city police had earlier made the arrest in a hurry, amid pressure from parents of the schoolchildren and several protests across the city.
By adding that Mustafa was not "directly involved" in the crime, the police apparently shifted the focus at probability of his indirect involvement.
To justify the blotch in the investigation, an investigating officer noted: "There were variations in her statements and some discrepancies in the complaint filed by her father. Also, substantial time has lapsed since the incident and the filing of the complaint."
