Danish gang-rape case: Court records police official's statement

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Thursday recorded the testimony of a woman police officer who was informed by a 52-year-old Danish woman that she was gangraped by nine persons here last year.

Additional Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja recorded the statement of sub-inspector Pushpa, the initial investigating officer of the case, in which she deposed that she had met and received a complaint from the victim in a hotel in Paharganj area of central Delhi on the night of January 14 last year.

Testifying as a prosecution witness, she said the woman told her about the incident that she was raped by nine persons but repeatedly refused to undergo medical examination.

The official, in her examination-in-chief through Special Public Prosecutor Atul Shrivastava, deposed that there were bruises all over the victim's body and her clothes were covered with mud, adding that an FIR was registered then.

She said that officials were also called from the Danish embassy here who spoke to the victim, who was still not ready for her medical examination. She said she had also recorded the statement of the gardener, an eye-witness to the incident.

Her statement remained inconclusive and would continue on September 26.

The police, in its charge sheet, has said that the nine accused, all vagabonds, had allegedly robbed and gangraped the Danish tourist at knife-point that night after leading her to a secluded spot close to the Divisional Railway Officers' Club near New Delhi Railway Station.

The accused, including three juveniles, were arrested. The three juveniles are facing an inquiry before the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB).

The six adult accused - Mahendra alias Ganja (24), Mohd Raja (22), Raju (23), Arjun (21), Raju Chakka (22) and Shyam Lal (55), are in judicial custody and facing trial.

The nine accused have been booked on charges of gangrape and robbery or dacoity, with an attempt to cause death or grievous hurt under IPC.

Earlier, depositions of the victim and two Danish police officers, who had come here from Denmark in pursuance to summons, were also recorded by the court.

During an in-camera hearing on July 1, the woman had narrated to the judge the entire incident and identified three of the six adult accused as the ones who had gangraped her. However, while deposing before JJB, she had turned hostile and failed to identify the three minor offenders.