Gang rape charge sheet was filed within 17 days

Apart from its brutality, the Delhi gang-rape will stand out from the investigation point of view as it took the Delhi Police only 17 days to file the charge-sheet after arresting the accused against the maximum of 90 days allowed under the law.

"Filing the charge sheet was a very important step in the Dec 16, 2012 gang rape case. Normally police take 90 days to file a charge sheet in such cases, but here we found our moral as well as legal duty to put forward the evidences before the court as soon as possible. Finally within 17 days, we produced a complete charge sheet," said Vivek Gogia, joint commissioner of police.

"I can say my team worked day in and day out in this case," said Gogia. Gogia said that during the first 48 hours of the case his teams' primary concern was to prevent loss of evidence.

"In any case, the first challenge is to identify the accused and the crime scene. When we saw the crime scene (the bus) first, it was washed and we were worried whether we would be able to pick sufficient evidence from it," said Gogia.

"But the persistence of our team paid off when we removed the aluminium floor of the bus and got blood and other DNA samples beneath it. So, when we got corroborative evidence, we produced comprehensive proof before the court," he said.

The officer, who closely monitored and supervised the investigations of the case, said: "We have taken scientific investigations to the highest levels in this case."

"We gathered DNA samples from nail scrapping and developed dental marks from the bite marks. I think it is the first case in which odontological forensics, a way of identifying people by their teeth, was used," said the officer.