Mumbai : While the Bandra police caught one of the five accused in the Bandra gang rape case on Friday evening, a day after the incident, the survivour’s neighbours recounted the ordeal from the time she was taken away in the middle of the night till she returned on Thursday morning.
On August 7, at 1 am, the survivour was asleep on the floor under a bridge which is home to several slum-dwellers. They live in make shift shanties without roofs. The bridge fulfills that need. A metre or so away from her a group of people sat and gossiped. One of them was the victim’s friend, Sana (17). “We were just talking and having a good time and suddenly this man came up to us and asked if we sold gaanja. We said we don’t and he moved on ahead,” said Sana.
The group got back to their conversation and didn’t notice when an auto rickshaw arrived near the spot where the survivour was asleep. One, Arif Mulla got out of the auto, caught hold of her hand, clamped her mouth shut and dragged her away towards the auto. As she was pushed inside the auto, the girl managed to choke out a muffled scream and alert her naighbours. She called out to one, Tahira khaala who lives next to the girl.
The auto sped away, picking up the man who had asked for gaanja on the way. Sana and others ran behind the auto but it was a wasted effort. It was the 26-year-old driver of the auto who the police had caught from Mankhurd. The police have refused to divulge his identity.
Tahira Shaikh, 50, then called her sister, Shabana Sayeed at 1.30 am and told her about the event. Sayyed, who lives in another locality a little away from Nargis Dutt Nagar, soon arrived at the spot and the lot spent a sleepless night waiting for the girl to come back.
“Contrary to what people are saying, she did not know Mulla. I don’t know how this angle of the marriage proposal came in,” Sayyed said. It was 9 am by the time the survivour came back in an auto.
After she recounted her ordeal, it was revealed that five men had taken her to a slum in Mankhurd. Three of them beat her and raped her. After she pleaded with the remaining two, they didn’t touch her. “She only remembered seeing a jungle. She somehow gave those men a slip and entered another house. The woman living in that house gave her a dupatta and Rs 300-400 and sent her here in an auto,” said Sayyed, “When she arrived here, her kurta was torn at the back and she said that she was in pain.”
At 10 am Sayyed and Shaikh took the girl to the Bandra police station where an FIR was filed. The rape survivour has been living under the bridge for the past three years. “Her parents died a couple of months ago. She has a brother and three sisters, all younger to her. They beg at the signal and bring food. She doesn’t do any work and is always in the company of us neighbours,” said Sana.
