Mumbai photo journalist gang rape: Police to fast track case

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Mumbai: The Mumbai police probing the gang rape of a photo journalist in the city, said that it will fast track the case in terms of collecting scientific evidence and filing the charge sheet in the court.
Addressing a press conference in Mumbai, city police commissioner Satyapal Singh said that its priority is to file the chargesheet in the court as soon as possible and it has sought the help of forensic scientists to examine the evidence collected.
A fifth accused in the case, who was arrested yesterday was remanded to police custody till September 5.
Explaining how the young scribe was brutalised, the investigators said that all the five accused took turns to sexually assault the victim and then coerced her into cleaning the crime scene after the shameful act.
Police have also recovered from the site some broken beer bottles with which the accused had threatened the intern, working with an English magazine, before gangraping her in the defunct mill premises at Lower Parel on August 22, when she went to shoot pictures for an assignment with her male colleague.
The fingerprints discovered on the bottle will be used as a evidence in the case. The evidence, along with other forensic samples, was sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory in Kalina, they said.
Meanwhile, fifth accused Salim Ansari (27), who was arrested from Delhi by crime branch sleuths yesterday, was today produced before a metropolitan magistrate court here which remanded him in 11-day police custody.
He was arrested from Bharat Nagar in North-West Delhi, when he was on his way to a relative's house in the capital. He was taken to a hospital for medical test and later brought to Mumbai.
Police sought Ansari's custody stating that the clothes he wore on the day of the crime, were required to be recovered and he was needed as the investigation in the case had reached a "crucial" stage.
Four others involved in the case -- Vijay Jadhav, Chand Babu Sattar Shaikh, Mohammed Kasim Hafiz Shaikh alias Kasim Bengali and Siraj Rehman Khan -- who were arrested earlier have been remanded in police custody till August 30.
There have been cases against the accused earlier, the commissioner said.
On measures taken to ensure security of women in the city, Singh said that the Mumbai police had told constrituted teams to respond to complaints from women. Any case of crime against women will be registered promptly and concrete action will be taken, he said.
The commissioner also said that the cops have identified 272 places similar to the crime scene, which can be called isolate places, or dilapidated buildings, and asked their owners to appoint a watchman or caretaker for the security around the place.