Odisha woman rape case: How cops built a watertight case against the 3 accused

Police also gathered CCTV footage from other locations falling on the stretch — Kashmere Gate, police post at Red Fort, DCP office Daryaganj, Mahatma Gandhi Marg, Rajghat, New Delhi railway station, Mathura Road, PWD headquarters, ITO building, and petrol/CNG pumps.

This extensive technical roadmap is among the major pieces of evidence that police put forward while filing the chargesheet in the case last month. The court has taken cognizance and the case is at the stage of scrutiny of documents. The Delhi Police will also file a supplementary chargesheet in the coming days.

The woman, meanwhile, continues to be under treatment at AIIMS. The three accused — auto driver Prabhu Mahto (28), scrap shop owner, Parmod (32), and a physically challenged beggar, Mohammad Shamsul (29) — were arrested three weeks after the incident and continue to be in judicial custody.

According to police, Mahto was passing by in his vehicle on the night of October 10 when he saw two men assaulting the woman at ITO. He joined them. Police said after they were done, Mahto took her to another location — Sarai Kale Khan — in his auto where he allegedly assaulted her again and abandoned her in a deserted area.

The chargesheet, which runs into over 400 pages, lists 32 witnesses. Twenty of them were policemen who had examined the victim, taken her to the hospital, jotted down her statement, and were a part of the team that arrested the accused men among other things.

The auto-rickshaw used in the crime, the blood-stained clothes of the victim, and the clothes the accused wore during the commission of the crime were some of the things that the police had recovered and are also on record in the chargesheet. Officers said the stains on the clothes of the accused matched those on the clothes of the victim.

Earlier, police had said it took them several days to gain the woman’s trust before she revealed information about the assault.
She had travelled to Delhi on May 9 without informing her family; they later filed a missing persons’ report on June 9 at a police Station in Odisha. After initially staying with an acquaintance, police said she began taking temporary shelter in public spaces such as bus stops, railway stations, and foot overbridges.