The sixth accused is an adult and has been sent to jail. Six people, including five minors, have been held in connection with the alleged gangrape of a 35-year-old Dalit woman in Badaun district, and the circulation of a video of the alleged incident on social media, police said on Friday.
They were held on Thursday night, hours after the woman complained to the police as the video went viral. Badaun Additional Superintendent of Police (Rural) Siddhartha Verma said the five minors, between 15 and 17 years old, had been sent to a juvenile home. The sixth accused is an adult and has been sent to jail.
“The woman and the five accused minors are from the same neighbourhood and know each other. In October, they had taken her to a field where they took turns to rape her while recording the whole incident on a mobile phone. They threatened to release the video on social media if she revealed the incident to anyone. This forced her to remain quiet. On Wednesday, one of the six accused, who is 19 years old, shared the video on social media and the woman got to know about it. She then lodged a complaint naming the five accused. We filed an FIR and held all six of them on Thursday night,” Verma told The Indian Express.
The police have invoked IPC sections 376 D (gangrape), 506 (criminal intimidation) and sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against the five minors, while the sixth person has been booked under the Information Technology Act.
“We are seeing if a medical examination has to be done on the woman or not since it is an old incident. But the facts are in front of us,” said Verma.
