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Journalism of Courage
Bus on which girl was raped had 11 challans, no CCTV but still allowed to run
The investigation has also revealed that the bus allegedly had heavy curtains covering its windows, restricting visibility into the passenger compartment from outside, officers said.
The suspected sleeper bus after a 16-year-old Class 11 student was allegedly gang-raped inside it, in Delhi's Kashmere Gate area.
The Delhi bus in which a 17-year-old girl was allegedly gangraped on August 4 – while it travelled unchecked by police for 47km, from Greater Noida to the city’s Kashmere Gate – may not have been compliant with mandatory safety norms for commercial passenger vehicles, the Express was told Tuesday morning.
The vehicle – a ‘sleeper’ bus operated by a privately-owned travel company – was issued 11 traffic challans, seven in July alone, for offences from speeding to driving without a permit. It also has thick curtains over its windows that restrict visibility from the outside, which is in violation of Supreme Court orders. And it does not seem to have a functional CCTV system – as required by law after the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape in the city.
The law also says commercial passenger vehicles must have vehicle-tracking systems, as well as panic buttons that must be monitored by emergency-response mechanisms. It is unclear if this bus had these measures.
Potential red flags raised by the bus’ journey through Noida, Delhi
And, if it did, the police are checking if these systems generated any alerts during the journey.
The Express was told the bus entered Delhi early on August 4 , sometime between 3.30 and 4 am.
Delhi teen’s gangrape
The bus reportedly travelled from a workshop in Surjapur in Greater Noida – where it had been sent for unspecified repairs – to a parking lot in north Delhi’s Timarpur where it is stationed while off-duty.
According to the police, sometime between 9 and 9.30 pm on August 4, as they were driving the bus back, the driver and conductor – Kuldeep and Sandeep – spotted the young girl standing by herself at Pari Chowk in Greater Noida.
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The teenager – who reportedly left home after a disagreement with her mother, was trying to get to her cousin’s home in Noida’s Sector 63 – was allegedly persuaded into boarding the empty bus.
And for the next few hours – while the bus travelled past multiple police checkpoints, including one on the Delhi-Noida border without being stopped – the girl was allegedly raped by both men.
A sketch of the route the bus took
They then dumped the girl somewhere on the Ring Road, within the jurisdiction of the Kashmere Gate Police Station, which she approached and asked for help.
“Considering the sensitive nature of the case and in accordance with the new criminal laws, Kashmere Gate Police immediately arranged the victim’s medical examination and registered a case… and with the help of CCTV cameras, the police traced the bus within four hours and arrested both accused,” Niharika Bhatt, DCP (North Delhi), told the Express Monday evening.
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The circumstances of the alleged crime are distressingly similar to the Nirbhaya gangrape, including the girl being raped on a bus as it moved – without police intervention – across the national capital.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
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