Hyderabad: The Rachakonda police arrested five persons for the alleged gang rape of a tribal woman and assault on her husband and their associate at a poultry farm last week.
Another nine persons who tried to force the victim to strike a deal with the alleged rapists were also arrested. Another person is still at large.
The victim, 30, and her husband, natives of Nagarkurnool district, came to the city four months ago and were working at a poultry farm run by one M. Prasanth Reddy at Harshaguda for a salary of Rs 15,000. Police said that Prasanth learned that the couple was selling the poultry feed to their associate, causing a loss to the farm.
On September 18, Prasanth along with his brother M. Anil Reddy, and friends V. Pavan Kumar, R. Bharath and C. Hanmanthu, took the couple to another poultry farm. There they allegedly confined the woman into a room, gave her sedatives and gang-raped her for two days. Her husband was held captive in another room and beaten to get information on selling of the feed. He finally named one Suresh. The accused persons called Suresh to the farm and beat him up before releasing all of them on September 21. The victim lodged a complaint with the Pahadishareef police.
The police said that its investigation found that 10 persons — V. Ravinder, B. Venkat Reddy, J. Ravinder, C. Yadaiah, J. Raju, B. Suresh, A. Lokesh, M. Vijay Kumar, M. Janardhan Reddy and Chandrashekar Reddy, all residents of Maheshwaram mandal — communicated with Prasanth and his aides that they could secure a compromise with regard to the police case.
“They held a panchayat Harshaguda and gave `1.02 lakh collected from Prasanth to the rape victim, and `1.3 lakh to Suresh’s father. The victims were threatened not to lodge a complaint with the police and their signatures were taken on a paper. The 10 members also parted with some money” said a police officer. All the accused and 10 others who tried to hush up the case were arrested.
