Dec 16 gangrape: witness not robbed before incident: accused

One of the accused in the December 16 gangrape case today claimed before a Delhi court that he, along with other five co-accused, had not beaten or robbed the carpenter on that night.
Ramadhar, a carpenter, was lured into the bus and robbed by six persons before they gangraped a 23-year-old girl in a moving bus here.
Appearing as a prosecution witness, Ramadhar had identified the four accused present in the court as those who had robbed and assaulted him on the December 16 night.
However, accused Mukesh, who was recording his statement before Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna said Ramadhar had boarded the bus on his own but he was aksed to get down from the vehicle after he refused to give the fare.

"It is correct that Ramadhar has boarded the bus on his own on December 16, 2012 evening from Sabji Mandi at Sector-4 of R K Puram in south Delhi.
"He deboarded the bus at IIT flyover. Accused Akshay asked to stop the bus as he was not paying the fare," Mukesh said adding the alleged victim was not thrown out of the bus.

However, the other accused Akshay Thakur said he was not present in the bus in which the girl was allegedly gangraped by the six accused persons, including him.
"It is wrong that I was present in the bus on December 16, 2012 night. I was not in Delhi as I had left for my village on December 15, 2012," Akshay told the judge, denying his involvment in the crime.

When told that he, along with co-accused, had dumped the girl on the road after committing the crime, Akshay said "as I was not present there, then how could I do it"?
On December 16, a female physiotherapy intern was beaten up and gangraped in a bus in which she was travelling with her male friend who was also brutally attacked with an iron rod.
There were six others in the bus, including the driver, Ram Singh, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Mukesh all of whom had raped the girl, it had said.