Investigators probing the Shakti Mill gangrape case suspect the accused had earlier raped other girls too in the dilapidated Shakti Mill compound, but due to the fear of the social stigma, none of the victims dared to come forward and lodge offences against the culprits.
A senior police officer who is heading a investigating team, on Saturday said that after raping the 22-year old photographer, the accused did not rob her and her friend. “The accused are petty thieves and robbers of the area and they would not have missed such a golden chance to rob valuables so easily. But they did not do so to ensure that the victims do not go to the police to lodge a case of robbery against them,” said the senior officer.
In her statement, (The Asian Age has a copy) the victim had stated that she and her friend even offered an iPhone and a camera (worth `30,000 each) to the robbers to let them go, but they refused to take it. Even in the end, the accused told both the victims to check their bags to see if anything was stolen. They were actually making sure that the victims don’t contact the police, another officer said. The police suspects that the accused targeted girls who visited the secluded place with their boyfriends for privacy. After accosting the couple and sexually assaulting the girls, the accused probably filmed the couple or took photographs of them in compromising positions and used it to blackmail them into silence by threatening to make their photos public. A hint of the same could be gauged from the victims’ statement that says two of the accused took her pictures after raping her.
According to sources, one of the arrested accused has even confessed to having committed similar offences in the mill compound, but the police does not have details of such cases as the victims never approached the police.