Mumbai gangrape: Fifth accused remanded in police custody till September 5

MUMBAI: The Mumbai police probing the gangrape of a 23-year-old photojournalist, has claimed that the culprits had forced the victim to clean up the crime scene at the desolate Shakti Mills compound here, even as the fifth accused was today remanded in police custody till September 5.

Explaining how the young scribe was brutalised, the investigators said that all the five accused took turns to sexually assault the victim and then coerced her into cleaning the crime scene after the shameful act.

Police have also recovered from the site some broken beer bottles with which the accused had threatened the intern, working with an English magazine, before gangraping her in the defunct mill premises at Lower Parel on August 22, when she went to shoot pictures for an assignment with her male colleague.

The fingerprints discovered on the bottle will be used as a evidence in the case. The evidence, along with other forensic samples, was sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory in Kalina, they said.

Meanwhile, fifth accused Salim Ansari (27), who was arrested from Delhi by crime branch sleuths yesterday, was today produced before a metropolitan magistrate court here which remanded him in 11-day police custody.

He was arrested from Bharat Nagar in North-West Delhi, when he was on his way to a relative's house in the capital. He was taken to a hospital for medical test and later brought to Mumbai.

Police sought Ansari's custody stating that the clothes he wore on the day of the crime, were required to be recovered and he was needed as the investigation in the case had reached a "crucial" stage.

Four others involved in the case -- Vijay Jadhav, Chand Babu Sattar Shaikh, Mohammed Kasim Hafiz Shaikh alias Kasim Bengali and Siraj Rehman Khan -- who were arrested earlier have been remanded in police custody till August 30.

All the five accused have been booked under various sections of IPC such as 376(D) (rape), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506(2) (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention).