Dec 16 gangrape: Accused denies seeing victim

One of the accused in Dec 16 gangrape case Friday claimed before a court here that he had never seen the 23-year-old girl who was brutally tortured and gangraped by six people in a moving bus and had only heard about the incident.

In his statement before Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna, accused Akshay Thakur also said he was not among the group of men who had raped the girl and assaulted her male friend.

"I have already said that I was not present in Delhi as I had left for my village (in Bihar) on Dec 15, 2012.... If I was not in Delhi, then how is it possible that I was a member of the group? Even I don't know the girl and have never seen her."

He also denied the allegation of the prosecution that the victim had in her statement written his name, saying Delhi Police fabricated the statement.

Thakur asserted that he was falsely implicated in the case.

When the judge told him that there is medical evidence against him with a cut mark on the victim's body matching with him, he tried to dismiss it. "How is it possible if I was not present in the bus?"

The case relates to a 23-year-old woman being gangraped and brutally assaulted in a moving bus in Delhi Dec 16 last year. Thirteen days later, she died in a Singapore hospital where she was taken for treatment.

Six people, including a juvenile, were arrested in the case. While accused Ram Singh, Mukesh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur are being tried by a fast track court in Saket in south Delhi, the juvenile's case was heard by the juvenile justice board.

The case against Ram Singh was dropped after he was found dead, hanging in his cell in Tihar Jail here.