Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor speaking at the end of a protest march against the gang-rape of a female photographer in Mumbai yesterday.
MUMBAI: Mumbai police yesterday arrested the fifth and final member of a gang suspected of raping a photographer, a crime that reignited anger about women’s safety in India following a similar attack last year.
The latest arrest came as the victim’s family urged the nation, including the media, to continue to fight for justice “for all those victims and their families” who have gone through “the same hell as we have”.
The family said it was “optimistic” their daughter’s case would be fast-tracked and the “severest of punishments” handed down to those responsible, because of ongoing campaigns and a tougher sex crime law introduced earlier this year.
“This will ensure that even the most sick-minded think twice before they act in such an inhuman and insensitive way,” it said in a statement.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan yesterday said the case would be tried in a fast-track court and noted criminal lawyer Ujjwal Nikam has been requested to appear as public prosecutor.
“The case will be tried in fast-track court to ensure speedy justice to the victim,” Chavan told reporters in Pune.
Yesterday a Mumbai police team arrested the fifth suspect in New Delhi over the brutal attack in which the woman’s male colleague was allegedly tied up with a belt and the woman attacked nearby.
“Our crime branch team arrested the fifth suspect from New Delhi earlier yesterday and he is being brought back to Mumbai,” a police official, who did not want to be named, said.
Mohammad Salim Ansari, 27, was nabbed at Bharat Nagar in north Delhi, a Delhi Police official said.
An official said four officials from Mumbai Crime Branch and a team of Delhi Police trapped Ansari and took him into custody as he was going to a relative’s house.
He was taken to a hospital for medical check-up and presented before a duty magistrate before being taken to Mumbai.
The Delhi court granted Mumbai police his transit remand for 48 hours, after which he would have to be presented before a court.
The group allegedly trapped and repeatedly raped the woman, said to be in her early 20s, on Thursday in an abandoned mill in an upmarket district of central Mumbai, where she was on assignment for a magazine.
The woman, reportedly an intern, is undergoing treatment at Mumbai’s Jaslok Hospital, where staff said she was steadily improving.
“She is eating normally and her medical parameters are in control,” the acting head of the hospital said in a statement.
The fifth suspect was tracked down after the arrest of four others since Friday, all in Mumbai. One arrested early yesterday was identified by the Press Trust of India as Kasim Bangali.
Two of the suspects, their faces covered by black cloth, were remanded in police custody until August 30 after appearing in a Mumbai court yesterday. On Saturday, two other suspects were also remanded in police custody.
The woman’s family pleaded with the media for privacy as they try to recover from this “nightmarish phase”.
“We hope and pray you will empathise and adhere to our humble request while continuing your support for justice, not just for my daughter but for all those victims and families who have gone through the same hell as we have,” they said.
The woman was earlier quoted by The Times of India as saying “rape is not the end of life” and she wanted to return to work.
The incident comes eight months after the student was gang-raped in a moving bus in New Delhi, while her male companion was beaten up. She died two weeks later from severe injuries.
A trial is in its final stages in that case, which sparked massive and sometimes violent protests.
It prompted soul-searching about whether India can protect its women, in a country where fear of social stigma, a hostile police reaction and an inadequate judicial process mean many sexual assaults go unreported.
The attack, which dismayed a city seen as far safer for women than the capital, sparked protests in Mumbai and uproar in the national parliament.
The woman was attacked while she was taking photos of the abandoned Shakti Mills factory compound next to a fashionable area of apartment and office blocks, shops and restaurants, police said.
They said the victim and her male colleague were approached by some men and told they should not be there, before being attacked.Agencies
