HYDERABAD: The alleged kidnap and sexual assault of a teenaged BPharmacy student has proved to be fabricated, following investigations by Rachakonda police.
The girl, who wanted to run away from her house, made up the episode and named the autorickshaw driver as an accused to settle scores from a previous enmity.
Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that she panicked after realising the large-scale involvement of cops and decided to be 'found' as an alleged victim of assault.
Rachakonda police cracked the case, which was gaining ground in social media and revealed the 'drama' within two hours of receiving a complaint from the 19-year-old's mother.
On February 10, Keesara police received a call from RL Nagar about the kidnap of the student by an autorickshaw driver. On receiving information, inspector J. Narender Goud and Keesara patrols rushed to the spot and met the parents of the victim.
“Preliminary information revealed that the student alighted from a college bus at Rampally crossroad and boarded an autorickshaw with others at 5.40 pm on Wednesday. At around 6.01 pm, she called her mother to inform that the driver did not stop at RL Nagar and he was driving at high speed despite her cries. Later her mobile went ‘out of reach’. After collecting primary information, cops alerted all police stations and started checking vehicles," said the commissioner.
When the teams traced the girl near an isolated place at Bethel Church on Annojiguda service road, she was visibly under trauma. Police teams along with her relatives shifted her to nearby private hospital and based on the complaint, a case under Section 365 IPC was registered and an investigation was taken up. After medical examination and recording of the victim's statement, appropriate sections of the law were added to the FIR.
“With the help of auto unions, we launched a hunt for the autorickshaw that the girl boarded and the vehicle was traced. All the CCTV footage from Rampally crossroads to Annojiguda service road were scanned and around 100 tapes were collected. The call data records of the victim as well as suspects were collected and the investigation teams gathered scientific evidence," added the official.
However, a lot of discrepancies were noticed in the victim's statement during questioning. She then confessed that due to family issues, she wanted to leave her house and therefore pretended that she was being kidnapped. “Later, due to police involvement, she panicked and out of fear weaved a story," police explained.
From the scientific investigation, it was revealed that the victim got down from the auto at the next stop. "She started walking within Ghatkesar police station limits. She took another autorickshaw and got down at Annojiguda and walked for some distance. The police team traced the cell tower location of the girl's mobile number and called her. She was asked to share her location. Due to some previous grudges against the autorickshaw driver, she wrongly implicated him," police concluded.
