Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh (left) and Joint Commissioner of Police (crime) Himanshu Roy during a news conference in Mumbai yesterday.
Mumbai/New Delhi: The gang-rape of a 22-year-old photojournalist in Mumbai was raised in parliament yesterday with Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj demanding death penalty for the perpetrators as Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said the state government would do its utmost to finish the probe and prosecute the accused fast.
Sushma Swaraj asked if there was any time frame for prosecuting the guilty and pointed out that those guilty in the December 16 gang-rape in Delhi last year had not been sentenced yet.
She also said that after the December 16 gangrape case, there were several gang rape cases reported. “We are not able to hang any of the brutes,” she said.
“You hang one or two of these beasts fast ... and these incidents will stop,” said Sushma Swaraj as several members thumped their desks in agreement.
Shinde, making a statement in the Lok Sabha, said: “The government of Maharashtra will do its utmost to complete the investigation and prosecute the accused under law expeditiously.”
He said he has spoken to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and was assured the case would be tried in a fast track court and the verdict announced fast. In Mumbai, city police Commissioner Satyapal Singh assured early justice for the young photojournalist who was gang raped by five men in an abandoned textile mill complex on August 22.
“Our priority is to collect the evidence and file the chargesheet as soon as possible,” he told reporters.
The Mumbai police have arrested all the five suspects who raped the woman. Two of the men were arrested on Sunday, including one from Delhi.
The police chief said all evidence had been collected and it would be handed over to forensic experts today. The men had also recorded the crime on their cell phones.
“The mobile phone on which the crime was video recorded by the accused has been recovered. We have also seized the phone of the victim which was sold off by the accused,” said Satyapal Singh.
He said out of the five accused, three had criminal records. He also confirmed that none of the accused was a juvenile as was being claimed by one of suspects’ mother.
“The accused was arrested in 2011 in a case,” he said, suggesting that the suspect in question was aged over 18 years.
“He is not a minor. As per our record, he has completed his 18 years of age,” Satyapal Singh said.
IANS
