IO dead, making strong case now a challenge for police

Ishrat S Banwait

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 10

Getting the three accused in the much talked about auto gang-rape case of November 2017 convicted and ensuring maximum sentence for them will now be a challenge for the UT police as the investigating officer (IO), the most important prosecution witness in the case, has died.

Sub Inspector Jung Bahadur Singh, the IO, was to record his statement in the district courts here on Tuesday but the police officials told the court that he died last week.

Jung Bahadur Singh was the only one in the police department who knew the most about the case. Without his statement, his colleagues, who will now record their statements, will have to ensure that strong evidence was put up before the court.

The SI was going through troubled times on personal as well as work fronts. He had recently been shifted from the police post in Sector 61 to the Sector 36 police station. His workload had increased.

His colleagues informed that he had been consuming alcohol for three days straight and was found dead in his room.

DSP (South) Harjeet Kaur, when asked about the future of the case, said, “The chargesheet in the case has already been filed. The SHO and other officials in the case will now have to prepare strong evidence.”

There are three accused in the case —Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Garib and Kismat Ali. They had allegedly raped a 22-year-old woman in the forest area of Sector 53 and were later arrested. Charges have been framed in the case under Sections 376D (gang rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.

The DNA samples of the three accused had matched with that of the victim, thus confirming the crime. Mohammad Irfan is an accused in a similar case dating back to December 2016.

The case

• The victim, originally from Dehradun, stayed in a rented accommodation in Mohali and was returning home from her typing classes in Sector 37 at night. She boarded an auto-rickshaw, which already had the three accused, including the driver, in it. The auto driver reportedly drove towards the forest area in Sector 53 where the trio allegedly raped her. 
• The images of the accused were caught in a CCTV camera installed at the Sector 42 petrol pump where the accused had stopped to get the fuel tank refilled. 
• Irfan, the auto driver, was the first one to be arrested on November 24 and had named the other two accused. The duo was arrested the very next day in Uttar Pradesh. 
• Previously, the police had announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh for information on the accused.