MUMBAI: City Police commissioner Sanjay Pandey has initiated an inquiry into the conduct of two police officers in the investigation into the Dharavi gang rape case. They have been accused of shoddy investigations and wrongly arresting two teenaged brothers without any concrete evidence.
On Friday, the two brothers Anil Chouhan (19) and Nilesh Chouhan (20) were released on bail on personal bonds of Rs 15,000 each by Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate’s court after Dharavi police had filed the application to discharge them under CrPC 169.
On May 11, a 20-year-old homemaker had alleged that at around 5 am while she was alone at home after her father-in-law had left for morning walk, two unidentified men barged into her house, tied her hands and on knife point raped her. They also filmed the act, she alleged. Based on her complaint, police registered an FIR against unknown persons and started scanning the CCTV footage. On May 16, Dharavi police said that they had cracked the case and arrested the Chouhan brothers. Police discharged them after a preliminary inquiry conducted by the joint commissioner of police (law and order) Vishwas Nangre Patil found that these two youngsters, arrested on the charges of rape, were present elsewhere at the time of the crime. “The family have presented the video of them being at Vile Parle and the scene of crime is in Dharavi which is nearly 8 km away. It is not possible for them to be present at both places at the same time. We have verified this before coming to a conclusion and discharging these boys,” said a senior officer.
Police also relied on the victim's statement wherein she had described the duo to be of heavy built. “These two boys were hardly 40 to 50 kg,” said Patil.
