Police personnel push a supporter of Bharatiya Janata Party who was trying to cross over the barricade during a protest outside the residence of Delhi’s Chief Minister Sheila Dixit in New Delhi yesterday.
New Delhi: A Delhi court yesterday sent Pradeep, the second accused in a five-year-old girl’s rape and torture case, to four days of police custody.
Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Garg also issued a production warrant against prime accused Manoj Kumar for today after police said they needed to confront him with co-accused Pradeep.
Police told the court that both Manoj and Pradeep had raped the minor. Manoj, from whose rented room the girl was rescued two days after she went missing April 15, however, blamed Pradeep for the brutal attack on the child.
Pradeep, 19, was sent to police custody till April 27 after investigators told the court that he had to be interrogated to unearth the sequence of events. He was arrested on Monday from Bihar’s Lakhisarai district where he was hiding at his maternal uncle’s house and brought here on transit remand.
The prosecution while seeking custody of Pradeep said they had to recover the mobile phones used by them and question him on new facts that might emerge during the probe.
Additional Sessions Judge Garg is the presiding officer of the special court under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. Pradeep was presented before him. Manoj said he lured the girl into his room by offering her chocolate, but blamed Pradeep for the rape.
Manoj was arrested on Saturday from his in-laws’ house in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district.
He was sent to judicial custody till May 4, following his two-day interrogation by police.
Meanwhile, protests continued yetserday in the national capital over the rape and brutal assault of a five-year-old girl in Delhi, as activists demanded the resignation of Delhi’s Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar and sought better safety for women.
Demonstrations were staged outside the police headquarters in central Delhi, All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences in south Delhi, where the girl is undergoing treatment, and at Jantar Mantar.
IANS
