Ghaziabad: No gang rape took place, 'conspiracy' hatched over property dispute, say police

The Ghaziabad police on Thursday said the Nirbhaya-like gang rape reported earlier this week was "fabricated" and no such crime took place. They said the conspiracy was hatched over a property dispute. Three men,  the woman's alleged associate who helped her stage the crime, have been arrested. They have been identified as Azad, Afzal, and Gaurav.

DCW Swati Maliwal, highlighting the case, tweeted on Wednesday that the woman had been kidnapped in a Scorpio SUV and gang-raped for two days by four men. She said the woman was found in a jute bag on the side of a road with an iron rod inserted in her private part. 

The allegations had triggered outrage. 

The police, however, contradicted the allegation. 

Inspector General Praveen Kumar was quoted by the news agency PTI as saying that they found no evidence against the accused men.

"Prima facie, in this case, no such incident has taken place. So, there is no question of getting evidence," he said. 

He said the woman hadn't been kidnapped and she went to a "designated place" of her own volition.

The senior officer said during the investigation, it was found that Azad's phone was switched off around the time the woman purportedly disappeared.

Azad is the main conspirator, the vehicle used belonged to Gaurav, and the help of the woman's associate Afzal was also taken, police said.

In her statement to the police earlier, the woman had said she had been to Ghaziabad to celebrate her brother's birthday, a day before the incident.

Police had earlier said that the victim's brother dropped her back and some people, who were known to her, picked her up from there.

The woman had earlier alleged that she was forced to get into the car at gunpoint.

The senior police officer said the dispute was about a small property.

"A woman named Sameena gave the property to Azad in 2021 who in turn gave its power of attorney to a man named Deepak Joshi. There was talk about giving this property to the Delhi woman. The case regarding this was going on in the court, the officer said.

Authorities at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital had on Wednesday said the woman's condition is stable and no internal injury has been found yet.

Nipun Agarwal, Superintendent of Police (City-I) Ghaziabad, on Wednesday had said the victim claimed that after raping her, the accused had inserted an iron rod in her private part but when the police tried to get her medically examined at a Meerut hospital, she refused.

"Doctors then referred her to the Meerut Medical college for treatment but she refused to go there as well. The woman was then taken to a Delhi hospital," the SP had said.

With inputs from PTI