5 rape accused booked under Disha Act in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore

Five men accused of raping a mentally challenged woman at Chavatapalem have been booked under the Andhra Pradesh Disha Act, 2019.

The Act enables the death penalty for rape and reduces the judgment period in such matter to 21 working days.

Guduru rural Circle Inspector Ramakrishna Reddy said accused D Sai Siva Kumar, Govind Swamy, S Vinod Kumar, Ch Lakshmaiah and another person are residents of Chavatapalem have been arrested.

"There are rowdysheets against three of them. On January 5, this gang saw a mentally retarded woman (30) coming out of her house for some domestic purpose. They forcibly took her to a secluded place. When she tried to protest, Sai hit with a stone on her head. After she fell down, the gang of five raped her. Later they cut her with a blade and killed her," he said.

"The police find the evidence of usage of a surgical blade. One of the accused Sai had used surgical blade in an old murder case. The police investigated with that evidence and cracked the case. All the five accused are caught at Kondagunta railway station," Reddy said.

Nellore district SP Bhaskar Bhushan visited the site of the incident and deployed special teams under supervision of Atmakuru DSP to nab accused.