Mumbai : Following the ‘disappearance' scare, a sessions court yesterday allowed police to handcuff the four accused in the photojournalist gangrape case during the transit between court and jail. Special prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told the court that they needed to be handcuffed as all of them had criminal history.
In an embarrassment for police, Siraj Rehman Khan, one of the accused, was said to be ‘untraceable' during the court hearing . Later he turned out be at Thane jail. Principal judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi yesterday sought rough outline as to how the trial would proceed. Prosecution said that draft charges will be filed against Vijay Jadhav, Kasim Bengali, Salim Ansari and Siraj Rehman on October 11, and recording of evidence can start from October 14.
Mumbai police (crime branch) officials told the court that charge sheet in another rape case, where Jadhav, Bengali and Ansari are among the accused, would be filed by October 9. Siraj, whose ‘disappearance' sent police into tizzy yesterday, was produced in the court yesterday.
The four accused have been named in the charge sheet under Indian Penal Code sections 506 (2) (criminal intimidation), 376(d) (gangrape), 377 (unnatural offence), 342 (wrongful confinement), 341 (wrongful restraint), 201 (destruction of evidence) and 120(b) (criminal conspiracy).
The young photojournalist was gangraped by the accused when she had gone to the deserted Shakti Mills compound here on August 22 with a male colleague on an assignment. Before that, an 18-year-old telephone operator had been allegedly gangraped on July 31 by five men, three of whom were also involved in the August 22 case, in the same premises.
