The police remained unsure about the trigger for the alleged suicide, but the rape survivor said her uncle was traumatised by the crime and would cry about it every night after returning from work.

New Delhi: A 45-year-old man was found hanging from a tree outside his house in central Delhi’s Karol Bagh on Thursday, two weeks after his 20-year-old blind niece was allegedly raped in a shed in the area.

The deceased, a rickshaw-puller, was the sole bread earner in the family that includes the fatherless rape survivor and her 55-year-old mother. The rape survivor on Thursday had said that she wants to withdraw the rape case and return to her village in Uttar Pradesh because there is no one left in the family to fight a long legal battle.

The police remained unsure about the trigger for the alleged suicide, but the rape survivor said her uncle was traumatised by the crime and would cry about it every night after returning from work.

Neighbours said the man was also angry with the police for arresting just one of the three suspects and “letting off” two others despite the survivor claiming that she had been gangraped by “two-three” men. However, the police insisted that only one man committed the rape.

“Every night, my uncle would drink and cry about what had happened to me,” said the girl. “He was the one running to the police station each time. He wanted all the men involved in the rape to be punished,” said the rape survivor’s mother.

On Wednesday, the deceased had his drink and dinner before going to bed. “When I walked out of home at 5 am, I found him hanging from a high branch of a tree. We depended on him for everything. He was the only person in our family who could make calls. My daughter and I can’t even dial 100, we can only receive calls,” she added.

The rape took place on May 4 when the young woman was sitting alone outside her shanty. The door to the hut was burned in a fire recently. Her mother had gone to fetch water, and her uncle was at work. She alleged that a local e-rickshaw driver had dragged her into a shanty where one or two men were already present. “The moment I was forced into the place, one of them gagged me,” she said, adding that she was gang raped by two-three men over a 20-minute period.

The survivor claimed that after the crime, the police had asked her how many perpetrators she could identify. “I said I heard only one of them talking, so the police said there was only one man. There were more people in the shanty, but they weren’t speaking,” she said

The police had immediately arrested an e-rickshaw driver, identified as Chotu Pal, after the survivor identified him from his voice. MS Randhawa,DCP (central), told at the time that two other men were standing guard outside the shanty. They were detained for questioning, but later let off. On Thursday, however, the DCP said there was “some confusion”. “The victim has told the magistrate in her statement that there was only one man. We have gone by her statement and the contents of the FIR,” said the DCP.