BAREILLY: On Friday evening
Sambhal police got a major breakthrough as they arrested fifth and main accused in the Sambhal
gangrape and murder case – Mahaveer. Police arrested him acting on a tip-off from Kesarpur Tri-Junction where he was waiting for a bus around 7:30 pm. Mahaveer and four other accused had allegedly gang-raped a 35-year-old woman on July 14 and dragged her to a nearby temple where they burnt her alive.
After the incident grabbed national headlines, the state government suspended superintendent of police RM Bharadwaj.
Rajpura police station house officer Anil Kumar said, “Acting on a tip-off, we have arrested the accused from Kesarpur tiraha when he was about to board a vehicle. With this arrest, we have nabbed all five accused wanted in the case."
The main accused, Mahaveer, is a distant cousin of the deceased woman’s husband. He had barged into her house on July 14 along with his four accomplices around 2:30am when she was sleeping with her 9-year-old daughter. The woman’s husband works as a labourer in Ghaziabad.
All five accused reportedly took turns to rape her and left the scene threatening to kill her if she opened her mouth. Minutes after the incident, the victim had made a phone call to her cousin narrating the whole incident.
However, all the accused returned to her house after sometime and dragged the woman to a nearby temple where they burnt her alive at a yagyashala.