Bengaluru: In a major breakthrough in the Vibgyor child rape case, the city police have arrested two gymnastic instructors, Lalgiri, 21, and Waseem Pasha, 28, who had gang-raped the first standard student on July 3rd at the school gymnasium.
The police ruled out the involvement of the detained skating teacher, Mohammad Mustafa aka Munna in the rape case, raising questions over whether police had wrongfully confined the father of one, who had consistently denied his involvement.
His parents had insisted that any evidence of paedophilia porn found on his laptop had been planted as police had taken possession of his laptop a day before his arrest.
Police are however maintaining that a suo motu case has been taken up at Whitefield police station against Mustafa for his alleged misbehaviour with girl students in another school in Whitefield where he was employed in 2011.
M.N. Reddi, the city police commissioner, said, “We are ruling out Mustafa’s direct involvement in this six-year-old’s sexual assault.”
Police on Tuesday admitted that investigations into the six-year-old’s rape case had hit a brick wall, as investigators could not put pressure on the child victim. Police admitted that facts mentioned in the First Information Report on July 14th and the facts that emerged during investigations differed.
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“Since the victim was a child, there was no clarity or vividness (sic) initially when the investigations started and we had to patiently wait for the child to open up with her counsellors about the perpetrators of the crime before we could make any arrests,” said city police commissioner, M.N. Reddi.
The police said that the child had identified the two gym instructors as the ones who had done “bad things” to her that day.
Based on the positive identification of the two men, and CCTV footage that clearly showed them as remaining behind in the gym with the rape victim, both men were picked up for questioning.
They reportedly confessed to the police that they had committed the crime, police said. The two alleged rapists are still in police custody and will be remanded to judicial custody as soon as investigations are complete.
Hushed up on principal’s orders?
Informed sources have told this newspaper that the massive cover-up was probably at the behest of the school principal, who forbade teachers from going public. The little girl, who was in a state of panic, was forced to go to school for three days after the incident, until her parents finally cottoned on to the enormity of the crime committed against her, and approached the school, only to find they were unhelpful, and denied anything untoward had happened. The parents finally went to the police on July 11.
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CCTV footage
Based on footage from 8 CCTVs and 240 CDs taken from the CCTVs, police were able to use the services of the Nimhans’ counsellors who was counselling the victim, to zero in on the two suspects against whom only circumstantial and supporting evidence had been found up that point.
Released earlier, held again
Lalgiri Indragiri and Waseem Pasha were reportedly detained by the police soon after the FIR was lodged on July 14 but released. It is reliably learnt that the police had detained Giri and Pasha soon after the parents of the victim registered a criminal complaint but the duo was released and on July 16 they arrested the skating instructor Mustafa alias Munna on “grounds of suspicion.” While practically nothing is known about Giri and Pasha’s antecedents, Mustafa does not have a “clean” record, charged some officers. “He may not be involved in this case but he has a past history,” alleged a cop.
Mustafa: Not involved, not innocent
The police said the detained skating teacher, Mohammad Mustafa aka Munna was not involved in the rape case, raising questions over whether police had wrongfully confined the father of one.
“We are ruling out Mustafa’s direct involvement in this six-year-old’s sexual assault,” said M.N. Reddi. But sources said that Mustafa had been seen on CCTV dragging the child, although not necessarily on the same day as the rape, and given that his laptop had footage of child porn, the police had no choice but to detain him for questioning.
Read: Mustafa’s parents wait for his return
No dark room in school
“There was no darkroom and the child was not locked in the room as a punishment,” said DCP (Crime) Abhishek Goyal, who was supervising the investigations led by Joint Commissioner Sharath Chandra. Twelve students, including the victim, had gone to the gym class on July 3. After exercising, all the students, except the victim, were allowed to go to the class. The two suspects, who had detained the victim inside the gymnasium, went on to gangrape her.
