15 held for UP highway rape, SSP suspended

Uttar Pradesh’s Akhilesh Yadav government on Sunday suspended Bulandshahar SSP Vaibhav Krishna, as well as an ASP, a circle officer and an SHO for apparent dereliction of duty for the highway robbery and rape case that occurred on the district’s outskirts in the early hours of Saturday morning.

UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, in a statement, warned of action “at the highest level” in the police if the case was not cracked by Sunday night.

A Noida family was waylaid and looted as the mother and her 14-year-old daughter were gangraped by eight men on National Highway 91 near Bulandshahar, but the police woke up to the case only Sunday morning after a section of the media reported the incident.

SSP Vaibhav Krishna reached the site of the incident almost 18 hours later.

The police on Sunday detained 15 persons in the case, that is now being handled by the Special Task Force. Three culprits were identified by the victims.

Reports said the family was travelling from Noida to Shahjahanpur by car when the vehicle was hit by a blunt object. The family stopped the car and were surrounded by a group of men near Dostpur village.

Their valuables were looted and the men were beaten and tied up with a rope while the mother and daughter were dragged into nearby fields and gangraped. This went on for three hours, after which the miscreants left.

One of the family members later managed to untie himself and called the police, but no immediate action was forthcoming. UP DGP Javeed Ahmad and principal home secretary Devashish Panda rushed to Buland-shahar on Sunday to supervise investigations.