Gang rape accused taken to crime spot to reconstruct events

JCP(crime) Himanshu Roy, who is supervising the investigation, was also present at Mills when the accused were brought there

The five accused arrested in connection with the gang rape of 23-year-old photojournalist were today taken to Shakti Mills compound here to reconstruct the sequence of events that led to the crime.

All the five accused were brought to the crime scene at around 1 PM and police sought details from them as to what had transpired on the fateful day.

The victim, an intern with an English magazine, was allegedly raped by the five accused when she had gone to the desolate Shakti Mills premises on August 22 with a male colleague on an assignment. Her colleague is a prime witness in the case.

Joint Commissioner of Police (crime) Himanshu Roy, who is supervising the investigation, was also present at Mills when the accused were brought there.

The reconstruction of events that led to the crime is also being video-recorded, police sources said.

All five accused - Salim Ansari, Vijay Jadhav, Chand Babu Sattar Shaikh, Mohammed Kasim Hafiz Shaikh alias Kasim Bengali and Siraj Rehman Khan - are in the custody of the Mumbai Crime Branch.

Police had earlier said that when Salim made a phone call to Kasim Bengali, asking him to immediately reach Shakti mills on the day of the crime, the latter was present in a shanty with Chand, Siraj and one more person. "That person has been found and made a witness in the case," he said.

Yesterday, two teams from Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Delhi, and Gujarat Forensic Science Laboratory, carrying advanced equipment, thoroughly examined the crime scene for nearly three hours to gather evidence to build a water-tight case against the accused.

The team from Gujarat also had two psychiatrists who conducted Layered Voice Analysis (LVA) on the accused. LVA is a technique designed for truth verification and detection of deceit. It helps measure the emotional content of human speech, captured live or extracted from recorded audio.

Police have also conducted searches at the homes of the accused and recovered clothes including undergarments.

Responding to a query about the victim being forced to clean the crime scene after the brutal act, a police official had earlier replied in the affirmative but said plenty of evidence was still collected from the spot.