Chargesheet filed in Bhopal gang-rape case

Sixteen days after a 19-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped here, police today filed a 200- page chargesheet against four accused in a city court.
Accused Golu alias Bihari Chadhar (25), Amar alias Ghuntu (24), Rajesh Chetram alias Raju (26) and Ramesh Mehra alias Raju (45) are currently in judicial custody.
The accused had raped the woman near the Habibganj railway station when she was returning home after attending a coaching class on October 31, according to the police.
The document was submitted in the court of Magistrate Salu Sirohi.
A special investigation team (SIT) was set up by the Madhya Pradesh police to probe the crime which triggered a massive outrage. Four persons were arrested for the crime.

The four were charged under the IPC sections 376 D (gangrape), 394 (voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery), 366 (kidnapping woman), 347 (wrongful confinement), 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement) and 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), SIT chief Deputy Inspector General of Police Sudhir Laad told PTI.

Besides, they have also been charged under the IPC sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 307 (attempt to murder), 201 (destroying evidence) and 34 (criminal conspiracy), he said.
Laad said that the reports of Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL), DNA and other tests conducted in connection with the gang-rape were attached with the chargesheet.

The stipulated time for filing a chargesheet in a criminal case is 90 days.
The survivor, daughter of a police couple, had to make rounds of different police stations to get her complaint registered as police officers feuded over jurisdiction.
After a public outrage over the delay in filing an FIR, five police personnel were suspended, while three others, two of them from the IPS cadre, were transferred.