The family in Bulandshahr was beaten, robbed and the woman and her daughter were gang-raped.
Highlights
- Noida woman, her daughter were raped on highway near Bulandshahr
- Their car was waylaid; male members of family were tied up with ropes
- All 6 accused in custody, main accused is head of a gang from Rajasthan
Eight days after the gang-rape of a woman and her 14-year-old daughter on a busy highway near Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh, the main accused in the case has been arrested.
Salim Bawaria, the head of a criminal gang from Rajasthan, was arrested from Meerut along with two others. With today's arrests, all six accused in the case are now in police custody.
The three accused were arrested after a week-long chase across eastern India, police said.
"Remaining three accused in Bulandshahr gang rape case arrested," Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police Javeed Ahmed told news agency ANI.
The arrests come on a day the Allahabad High Court asked for an investigation progress report from the Bulandshahr Senior Superintendent of Police and asked the government to tell the court why the case should not be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation or CBI.
On the night of July 31, the family from Noida was driving to a funeral in Bulandshahr, around 65 km from Delhi, when their car was waylaid by a gang of robbers. Their car was stopped and they were robbed and beaten. Then the men were tied up and the woman and her 14-year-old daughter were gang-raped for three hours.
The incident took place barely 100 meters from a police post but no one heard any shouts for help. "We dialed 100 for 15 minutes, but got either a busy tone or no response. Finally, I called my friend and he called the police," said the cab driver whose wife and daughter were raped.
The gang-rape and the inaction that followed, has reconvened attention on the recurring crimes against women in India's largest state, leading the opposition parties to demand the dismissal of the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government.