Park Street gang-rape accused arrested

Both were absconding from the day after the victim Suzette Jordan, who died on March 13, 2015, had lodged a complaint with the police on February 9, 2012 alleging that she was gang-raped in a moving car.

The police brought the duo to the city in an early morning flight and produced them before the Bankshall Court. They were remanded in police custody for 14 days after being produced before the court on Friday afternoon. The police will be submitting a supplementary charge-sheet in connection with the incident in which the court has already convicted three youth, Naser Khan, Ruman Khan and Sumit Bajaj and sentenced them to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.

Murlidhar Sharma, Deputy Commissioner (South), said a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed around four months ago soon after the police came to know that Kader and Ali were in India. Finally, the officers were successful in arresting the duo.

However, the culprits were arrested in a dramatic manner. Four members of the SIT along with the constable Sanjib Das had been keeping a watch on the movement of Kader and Ali for the past three days. The duo was staying as paying guests in the second floor of a two-storey bungalow at F-58, Sector Alpha II under Kasna Police station area in Greater Noida. Their nephew Faizal, who is an M.Tech student, stays as paying guest in the same bungalow with around 45 other students from different states.

The duo had been staying there for the past 15 days. On Thursday night, they had travelled around 50 km from Kasna to Jamianagar to attend birthday party of another relative, Afzal.

The policemen in plain clothes followed them and entered the bungalow at Kasna soon after they returned. Realising that the police conducted a raid, the duo ran to the bungalow’s terrace and tried to hide inside a huge water tank. But it was not possible for them to hide inside for a long time. Within a few minutes, police found them out. In a last bid to flee, both Kader and Ali jumped from the terrace of the bungalow to the verandah of another closely situated house. Sanjib Das, constable of Kolkata Police, too jumped to the verandah and caught the duo.

Instead of producing them before a court there to seek transit remand, the police brought them to Kolkata by an early morning flight and produced them before the Bankshall Court within 24 hours of their arrest.

Sources said that soon after the complaint was lodged with Park Street police station on February 9, 2012, the duo had fled and took refuge in house of a relative in Bihar. After spending a few days there, the duo had moved to Mumbai. They have relatives in different parts of North and South India including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Thus, they used to keep hopping from house of one relative to another.

After it became confirmed they had not fled outside the country, the police prepared a list containing details of their relatives and started surveillance in each of their places. Finally, the police zeroed in to Greater Noida and started keeping vigil at the houses of Faizal, Afzal and another relative. They never stayed in any hotel. They always used to take shelter in houses of their relatives. Based on the statement given by them till now, the police feel that they had not gone outside the country. But the police are yet to verify whether they went to a neighbouring country and they returned to the country as they ran out of money. The police would also question Faizal suspecting that he had helped the duo to get shelter as paying guest where he stays in Greater Noida.

It may be recalled that the police had shown the duo absconding in the charge-sheet while three — Rumen, Naser and Sumit — were arrested earlier. Rumen and Naser were convicted under several Sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on charges of gang-rape (376 2G), criminal conspiracy (120B), voluntarily causing hurt (323), criminal intimidation (506) and acts done by several persons (34). Sumit, the driver of the car in which 37-year-old Suzette Jordan was gang-raped on February 5, 2012, has been booked only on charges of gang-rape.