Tele operator was gang-raped in Shakti Mills like photojournalist

A 19-year-old telephone operator filed a police complaint on Monday night that she was raped by five people in July in the Shakti Mills compound. 

It now turns out that three from this gang of five were also involved in the rape of the photojournalist in the same compound on August 22.

The police have arrested one of the other two, who is a minor. The fifth suspect is Mohammad Ashfaq Dawood Sheikh alias Bala, 30.

The victim, a resident of Mulund, is a Std IX pass-out. She works in a private company in Bhandup. 

This girl wanted to marry a 21-year-old with whom she was in a relationship.

On July 27, the boy met the girl’s mother to discuss marriage plans. The mother insisted on his having an independent house before marriage. 

On July 31, both the boy and the girl came to a garden in Mahalaxmi. While returning, they spotted two women and a man, and asked them for a short-cut to the station. “The trio took them through the Shakti Mill compound as it was a shorter route,” said deputy commissioner of police, Zone III, Vinayak Deshmukh.

After a while, the girl complained of pain in her leg and they decided to stay back. “At 8pm, three men accosted them. They threatened the victim’s friend and tied him up, a method they employed on August 22,” he said.

Later, one of the accused called two more friends on the mobile phone and they gang-raped her. 

 “It’s not known if they took any video,” said Deshmukh.

On the same day (July 31), the boy and the girl travelled to Bilaspur from CST. They stayed with a relative of the boy for a month. When the girl did not return home, her mother lodged a complaint at Bhandup police station on August 1.

 The girl called her mother on August 10 and told her she will reach Mumbai the next day. On August 11, the duo came to the city. On learning there’s a police complaint, they fled the city again, the police said.

They came back to Mumbai on September 1 and narrated the incident to her mother. The girl’s mother informed the Bhandup police that her daughter had returned, but hid the rape incident. 

The girl, however, told the police about the incident on September 2 while they were recording her statement.

After her statement was recorded, the police showed her photographs of the accused in the August 22 gang rape case. 

“She identified Mohammad Salim Ansari, 27, and Vijay Mohan Jadhav, 18, and Mohammad Kasim Sheikh alias Bengali, 19, who were involved in the August 22 incident. The three, later, disclosed the names of the other two,” the police said.  

Of the other two, one was even questioned by the police in the August 22 case.