A policeman outside the Shakti Mills compound in Mumbai where a 22-year-old photojournalist was gang-raped on Thursday night.
Before noon on Friday, the Mumbai Police signaled that it had solved the case and arrested one of the five men who allegedly gang raped a 22-year-old photojournalist at the city's Shakti mills compound.
The arrest was made in the very early hours of Friday. Mumbai's police commissioner Satyapal Singh said the accused, in his early 20s, had confessed to his role in the crime and had helped them identify the other four men, providing the police with names and whereabouts.
(Mumbai photojournalist gang-raped: one arrested, four accused identified, say police)What helped most, the police said, in cracking the case in less than a day was the detailed statements that the young woman and her male colleague, who was with her when she was assaulted, gave to the police.
(Mumbai gang-rape: Horror in an abandoned mill)From the statements the police prepared sketches of the accused - "which were 85% correct," the police chief said - and also gleaned that they were most likely locals who lived in the vicinity of the abandoned mill compound, since they seemed to know the topography very well.
Mr Singh said the police was informed about the incident at about 8.30 on Thursday evening. By 8.45, he said, they had swung into action. "Twenty police teams were formed, different teams were given different tasks," he said.
The sketches were drawn at night and the police teams fanned out to search for the rapists, he said. Within hours the first arrest had been made.
All the accused are between 20-22 years of age. Two have cases of burglary against them. The police suspect that some of the accused could be drug addicts but the man arrested was not under the influence of alcohol or any other substance when he was arrested.
The police have promised to knit a fool-proof case and ensure that "the accused get maximum punishment."