Mumbai gang-rape case to be tried in fast-track court

Mumbai: Mumbai police on Sunday arrested the fifth and final member of a gang suspected of raping a photographer, a crime that reignited anger about women’s safety in the country following a similar attack in December last year.

add_main_imageA Mumbai police team arrested the suspect in New Delhi over the brutal attack on the woman as she was taking photographs in Mumbai with a male colleague, a police official said.

“Our crime branch team arrested the fifth suspect from New Delhi earlier on Sunday and he is being brought back to Mumbai,” the official, who did not want to be named, told AFP. The officer declined to give details of the arrest.NextMAds

The men allegedly trapped and repeatedly raped the woman, said to be in her early 20s, on Thursday evening in an abandoned mill in an upmarket district of central Mumbai, where she was on assignment for a magazine, police said.

The Maharashtra government, meanwhile, appointed noted lawyer Ujjwal Nikam as special public prosecutor in the case, which will be tried in a fast-track court, even as the Mumbai police intensified the hunt to trace the mobile phone used to shoot pictures of the brutal attack, PTI reported.

The attack rekindled memories of the fatal gang-rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi in December. That crime sparked nationwide protests and brought to the surface seething anger about violence against women in the country.

The woman, reportedly an intern, is undergoing treatment at Mumbai’s Jaslok Hospital, where staff said she was improving but has multiple injuries.

She was quoted on Sunday as saying “rape is not the end of life” and wanted to return to work.

“I want strictest punishment for all the accused and want to join duty as early as possible,” she told members of a national women’s group who visited her in hospital, according to The Times of India.sixthMAds

The fifth suspect was tracked down after the arrest of four others since Friday, all in Mumbai. One arrested early on Sunday was identified by the PTI as Kasim Bangali.

Two of the suspects, their faces covered by black cloth, were remanded in police custody until 30 August after appearing in a Mumbai court on Sunday. On Saturday, two other suspects were also remanded in police custody.

The attack, which dismayed a city seen as far safer for women than the capital, sparked protests in Mumbai and uproar in the parliament.

The woman was attacked while she was taking photos of the abandoned Shakti Mills factory compound next to a fashionable area of apartment and office blocks, shops and restaurants, police said.

The victim and her male colleague were approached by some men and told they should not be there, after which the colleague was tied up with a belt and the woman attacked nearby, police said.

The incident comes eight months after the student was gang-raped in a moving bus in New Delhi, while her male companion was beaten up. She died two weeks later from severe injuries.

A trial is in its final stages in that case, which sparked massive and sometimes violent protests.

It prompted soul searching about whether India can protect its women, in a country where fear of social stigma, a hostile police reaction and an inadequate judicial process mean many sexual assault cases go unreported.

The public outrage led to a tougher anti-rape law that included increased punishment for sex offenders, who face the death penalty if a victim dies, and a broader definition of sexual assault.

Since the December incident, dozens of rapes of women—including foreign tourists—have been highlighted in the media. AFP

PTI contributed to this story