Uttar Pradesh gangrape: Police arrest three suspects, government suspends seven officers
After outrage around the case grew, the crackdown on the Bulandshahr authorities for laxity and failing to solve the case.
The Uttar Pradesh Police on Sunday arrested three people accused of raping a Noida woman and her teenage daughter at gunpoint off the Delhi-Kanpur highway on Friday night. The three have been identified as Naresh, Bablu and Rais, all belonging to nomadic tribe Bawariyas, reported The Indian Express. The police had earlier detained 15 people in connection with the case.
National Commission for Women chief Lalitha Kumaramangalam, however, questioned the genuineness of the detentions made by police in the case. She said that an NCW member met the victims and officials in Uttar Pradesh and added that it finds little cooperation from the state administration in such cases, reported the Times of India.
The state government suspended seven top police officers from Bulandshahr for laxity and failing to crack the case. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had asked the state police to arrest the attackers within 24 hours. The police have formed 15 special teams to crack the case.
The Opposition slammed the ruling Samajwadi Party for the incident. Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati said women were not safe while the Bharatiya Janata Party accused the government of not protecting the highways.
The incident took place when the family was travelling to Shahjahanpur to attend a relative’s funeral and had set off from Sector 68 at midnight. The men allegedly surrounded their car and then forced all of them into a field nearby. There, they assaulted the woman and the 15-year-old girl. The gang, which forced the car to stop near Dostpur village, also looted the family, taking their money, jewellery and mobile phones.