Auto driver arrested in Ujjain rape case
The Hindu
Ujjain Superintendent of Police Sachin Sharma said that the girl had gone missing from Satna on September 24 and arrived in Ujjain in the early hours of September 25. The autorickshaw driver, who found her wandering on the streets, raped her, police said.
An autorickshaw driver, who was arrested for allegedly raping a minor girl he found wandering the streets of Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain, sustained injuries while attempting to escape from police custody on September 28, investigators claimed.
Earlier this week, the girl was found on the road, bleeding from injuries caused by the sexual assault. The police arrested two autorickshaw drivers in connection with the case – Bharat Soni for the sexually assault and Rakesh Malviya for failing to report the crime.
Ujjain Superintendent of Police Sachin Sharma said that the girl had gone missing from Satna – nearly 720 km from Ujjain – on September 24 and arrived in the holy city in the early hours of September 25. The autorickshaw driver, who found her wandering on the streets, raped her, police said.
Through a chain of technical, medical and circumstantial evidence, the police narrowed down the purported timespan – between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. – during which the assault took place. Video evidence, corroborated by eyewitness account, further established that she was seen with six people – four of them autorickshaw drivers, Mr. Sharma added.
“Footage from more than a thousand CCTV cameras of the city was checked, information was collected from residents of colonies located on the bypass road and technical evidence was gathered. Various teams interrogated those with criminal records and others including autorickshaw drivers, rickshaw pullers, e-rickshaw drivers, bus operators, and people at railway stations and bus stands were also interrogated,” he said.
On September 28, the police learnt through an informer that an autodriver Bharat, whose auto has Arjun written on it, took the girl with him. The SIT members took him into custody and interrogated him during which he purportedly confessed to his crime, said a police statement.
According to the statement, the police took Bharat to inspect the spot of the crime where he tried to flee after pushing the police personnel accompanying him.
“We are judges and therefore, cannot act like Mughals of a bygone era ... the writ courts in the guise of doing justice cannot transcend the barriers of law,” the High Court of Karnataka observed while setting aside an order of a single judge, who in 2016 had extended the lease of a public premises allotted to a physically challenged person to 20 years contrary to 12-year period stipulated in the law.
The High Court of Karnataka on Monday declined to interfere, at present, in the investigation against a Bharatiya Janata Party worker, who is among the accused persons facing charges of circulating obscene clips, related to “morphed” images and videos clips related to Prajwal Revanna, former Hassan MP, in public domain through pen drives and other modes.