New Delhi: The six December 16 gang-rape accused would habitually drink through
Sundays and take out the chartered school bus at night to pick up sex
workers, a senior police officer said.
Police sources alleged that the accused, charged with
murder after the victim's death on Saturday, had tried to run her and
her male friend over after throwing them out following the assault, but
the friend had somehow dragged the victim away from the vehicle's path.
"On Sundays, the accused would
first take the bus out to ferry passengers, earn extra bucks and buy
more liquor. At night, they would pick up roadside sex workers and have
sex inside the bus," the officer said.
On December 16, a Sunday, the victim, a 23-year-old
trainee paramedic, and her friend had boarded the bus at night thinking
it was a public bus.
The privately owned bus, which
had tinted glass panes and curtains, ferried children to and from a
Delhi public school on weekdays. The officer said driver Ram Singh had
told investigators about the Sunday night "fun rides".
On December 16, the accused had
apparently partied at Ram's one-room home at a south Delhi slum till
evening, cooking chicken and drinking heavily, before setting out with
the bus. Ram's younger brother Mukesh was at the wheel. Ram, gym
assistant Vinay Sharma, fruit seller Pawan Gupta, bus cleaner Akshay
Thakur, and the sixth accused, who claims to be a minor, sat inside.
They picked up passengers and
robbed one of them, Ram Adhar, of his gold chain, the officer said.
Here's the subsequent sequence of events as mentioned in the FIR, which
will be part of the chargesheet to be filed on January 3 in a fast-track
court, seeking the death penalty for all the accused:
At 9.15, the accused spot the
couple waiting at Munirka bus stop and ask them their destination. Told
that it's Dwarka, they say the bus too is headed that way. The
unsuspecting couple board it. They mistake three of the accused, sitting
in passenger seats, for commuters. The cleaner shuts the door.
The accused pass lewd remarks at
the victim, asking why she's alone with a man late at night. When the
friend protests, he is attacked. The friend beats up two accused but the
gym assistant attacks him with an iron rod.
Three accused drag the woman to
the back seat and rape her; the others join in later. The victim fights
back and bites the hands of three accused, who get angry and brutalise
her with an iron rod. Hair and blood samples of the victim have been
found on Ram's nails.
After 45 minutes of brutality, the accused strip the duo and throw
them out of the moving bus on a roadside after taking away their
cellphones and wallets. Ram asks Mukesh to run the couple over.Ram takes the wheel from Mukesh and drops the other accused home. He cleans the bloodstains before parking the bus at its owner's place in Noida in the early hours. Two eyewitnesses have claimed to have seen Ram destroy evidence.
"We shall prepare the final
chargesheet by tonight or tomorrow morning," an officer said. The police
tonight received the post-mortem report. The autopsy was conducted in
Singapore, where the victim died.
The draft chargesheet mentions
Ram as the prime accused. His wife died in 2008. An inquiry has revealed
he is an alcoholic and a short-tempered man who regularly picked fights
with neighbours, an officer said.
The accused have been charged
with murder, attempt to murder, gang rape, unnatural offences,
kidnapping, hurting a person while committing robbery, dacoity and
destruction of evidence, read with the section on common intention.
Cheating case
The police today booked bus owner
Dinesh Yadav in a case of cheating and making a false statement on oath
to a public servant, PTI reported.
Yadav allegedly gave a false affidavit about his home address to get the bus registered with the transport authority.
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