The Manpada police in Dombivli have registered a case against 29 people for allegedly raping a 15-year-old girl on different occasions and at different places. Twenty-six people have been detained by four police teams, 24 of whom have been arrested while two minors have been sent to observation homes.
Police said the minor and most of the accused were acquainted and they all lived in Dombivli. “On September 22, after the girl approached Manpada Police, a complaint has been registered against 29 people as per her statement. We have formed four teams and have arrested 24 people and two minors have been detained. A special investigation team probe is underway,” said Additional Commissioner of Police, East Region, Datta Karale.
Karale confirmed that a case had been registered at Manpada police station under section 376, 376 (N), 376 (3) and 376 (D) (A) of the Indian penal code and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offence Act, 2012.
The survivor, in her statement to police said the incidents had taken place between January 29, 2021, and September 22, 2021. “The accused took her to different places in Dombivli, Badlapur, Murbad and Rabale on different occasions and allegedly raped her. She alleged that her boyfriend first raped her and created a video, which was shown to other youngsters. By threatening her with further circulation of the video, she was raped by different people in the last eight months. We have registered the case and names of the accused as per the statement of the girl. She has told us the first names of many accused and they have been traced accordingly. The girl has been sent for medical examination to the Kalwa civic hospital and an investigation is going on,” said a police officer.
Karale said that Assistant Commissioner of Police Sonali Dole was investigating the case and had recorded the statement of the minor.
Senior Police Inspector D Choure of the Manpada police station said, “The accused were produced in court and remanded in police custody till September 29. Investigation is going on and more names may be added,” Choure said.
Meanwhile, security was deployed at the Manpada police station as local and state leaders began to show up with their party members to question the authorities and demand speedy investigation. The accused taken into police custody kept screaming on camera that the girl had ‘ditched all of them and that she took cash from people’.
Sources from the Manpada police station also claimed that many of the accused were close relatives of some politicians from Dombivli and Kalyan.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Chitra Wagh too reached Manpada police station to question the authorities, accompanied by her party colleagues.
Meanwhile, Shalini Thackeray, general secretary, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, tweeted that the Dombivli gangrape incident was shocking and proved that the state of Maharashtra was more or less just like Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
