Alwar:
Police on Saturday filed a chargesheet against the six accused in the Alwar gangrape case in a SC/ST Court here.
Meanwhile, another case has been registered against unidentified people for uploading the video of the gangrape on YouTube, the police said.
Investigating Officer and Deputy Superintendent of Police Jagmohan Sharma said a350-page chargesheet was filed in the SC/ST Court against six accused. “Five of them have been charged with various sections of the IPC, the SC/ST Act and IT Act, and one accused has been charged with sections of the IT Act,” he said.
The next hearing in the case is on May 21.
Inderraj Gurjar, Ashok Gurjar, Chotelal Gurjar, Hansraj Gurjar, and Mahesh Gujar are accused of raping the woman.
While, they have been charged with rioting, gangrape, criminal intimidation and kidnapping, Mukesh Gurjar, who shot and circulated the video, has been charged under the IT Act.
Alwar Superintendent of Police Anil Paris Deshmukh said the maximum punishment for gangrape is imprisonment till death and added that the case has 35 witnesses.
SHO of Kotwali Police Station Kanhaiya Lal lodged a case under section 228-a of IPC, which deals with the disclosure of identity of the victim of certain offences.
“The case was registered on Friday. We have written to the authority concerned to block the video,” Lal said.
Deshmukh said a technical team was making efforts to ascertain the identity of the accused who would be arrested.
The video was uploaded on May 10 and it has more than 30,000 views, the police said.
The victim was going with her husband on a motorcycle on Thanagaji-Alwar road on April 26 when the accused stopped them and took them behind a sand dune along the roadside.
They thrashed the husband and raped her in front of him. The couple were held captive for nearly three hours before they were let go in the evening.
Initially, they kept quiet but the accused called up the husband and demanded money, threatening to upload the video on social media. The husband then narrated the incident to family members and approached the then Superintendent of Police Rajiv Pachar with his complaint on April 30.
Pachar marked the complaint and asked him to meet the SHO of Thanagaji Police Station but the the officer did not give a serious response and the FIR was only lodged on May 2.
The accused kept calling up the husband for money, following which he sought help from the SP and police again, but they asked him to wait, saying they were busy in elections.
On May 4, the accused circulated the video on social media.
When the matter came into light on May 7, the next day of polling, protests rocked the state and the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government faced severe criticism.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BSP chief Mayawati condemned the incident, while the BJP, the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party held protests in Alwar, Jaipur, Dausa and other areas, alleging that the case was covered up for political reasons during elections.
The Rajasthan government placed Pachar under awaiting posting order (APO) status, suspended the SHO of Thanagaji police station and shunted four policemen to lines.
The Congress blamed the BJP of politicising the matter and party president Rahul Gandhi, who visited the victim in Thanagaji on Thursday, assured them that justice would be done.
