Hyderabad: Six months after a 22-year-old techie was kidnapped and raped by two cabbies in the city, the trial ended on Friday in the court of Metropolitan Session Judge of Cyberabad in LB Nagar.
Examining as many as 21 witnesses and producing vital evidence, the prosecutors built up a strong case and have sought death. For the first time in the history of criminal cases in Andhra Pradesh, the most crucial witness in the case, now in the United States, was examined through video conference. The judge Dr Nagarjuna is likely to pronounce the verdict in a few days.
The Madhapur police, who had arrested the suspects Vedicherla Sathish and his friend Nemmadi Venkateswarlu, had filed a charge sheet of around 50 pages against the accused. Although the defence lawyers had applied for bail three times it was rejected by the court, sources said.
While Cyberabad public prosecutor T. Nagaraju appeared for the prosecution, the defence team had two lawyers, one for each suspect.
The most important witness in the case was the victim’s close friend, whom she had first called for help. He was working in a software firm in Bengaluru at that time, but had subsequently gone to the US on work. The court examined this witness through video conference sources said. Of the 21 witnesses 15 were private individuals who were friends of the victim who went in search of her when she alerted them about the abduction.
On the night of October 18, the cab drivers, who were roaming around Hitech city with an intent to rape, encountered the victim while she was waiting for a cab to go home after shopping.
After bargaining about the fare one of them pretending to be a passenger, convinced her to take the cab. What followed was a four-hour horror story during which the duo drove the Volvo car past four junctions, two toll booths passing at least 22 km on the ORR with the petrified victim inside the car.
They raped her at a deserted Mango grove near the Birla Open Minds School at Kollur in Medak, and later dropped her at her hostel after threatening to kill her if she revealed the incident to anybody.
Within four days, Cyberabad cops nabbed the suspects, who confessed to the crime.
