Mumbai gangrape: 4 accused sent to judicial custody till Sep 19

Police custody of the accused ended today; 5th accused sent to juvenile remand home

Four accused in the 23-year-old photojournalist gangrape case were today remanded in judicial custody till September 19 by a magistrate court here.

Magistrate U M Padwad sent all the four culprits--Shiraz Rehman Khan, Vijay Jadhav, Kasim Bengali and Salim Ansari--to 14-day judicial custody after the Crime Branch sought the same to conduct an identification parade. Their police custody ended today.

On August 30, another minor accused was produced before a juvenile court, from where he was sent to a juvenile remand home in Dongri. The juvenile accused, if convicted, would have to spend a maximum of three years at a correctional facility instead of undergoing stricter punishment of no less than 7 years which could extend up to life imprisonment for others.

According to police, one of the five accused in the brutal crime was found to be a minor after his brother produced a birth certificate issued by the city's civic authority and a school leaving certificate, both of which showed that he was born in February 1997.

On August 27, teams from Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Delhi, and Gujarat Forensic Science Laboratory, had scoured the crime scene at Shakti Mills Compound here for nearly three hours looking for evidence to build a water-tight case against the accused.

The team from Gujarat included two psychiatrists who conducted a Layered Voice Analysis (LVA) on the accused. Its a technique designed for truth verification and deceit detection. Later, forensic tests confirmed that DNA samples found on the victim matched with those of the suspects.

The investigators have slapped three more Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections-- 377 (Unnatural offence) , 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) against the accused.

The five accused had been earlier booked under various sections of IPC including 376(D) (rape), 342 (wrongful confinement), 506(2) (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention to commit an offence).

The young scribe was sexually assaulted at defunct and deserted Shakti Mills compound in Parel area on the evening of August 22 when she had gone there on assignment with a male colleague.