A PRIVATE taxi driver and his aide allegedly gangraped a 20-year-old woman while she was on her way back home in Sultanpur district on Friday evening, police said. After the crime, the two suspects left her near a police station and fled. The police are collecting CCTV footage of the area and will prepare sketches of the two accused on the basis of information provided by the woman. She was sent for medical examination and the report is awaited, said a senior police officer. Superintendent of Police, Sultanpur, Somen Barma said search is on for the accused. The woman is an engineering student in Lucknow, police said. According to the police, she reached Sultanpur around 7.30 pm on Friday. She called a relative who offered to pick her up, but she said she would take a taxi. She hired a taxi in which a passenger was already sitting, apart from the driver. She again called her family members and informed them that she was on her way back home in a taxi. “The woman has alleged that after covering some distance, when the vehicle reached a secluded spot, the taxi driver and the other man forcibly took her phone. After parking the car on the roadside, they sexually assaulted her,” said a police officer. Later, the accused dropped her near a police station. “The woman told us that the accused returned her phone and drove away. She then called a relative, who reached the spot and took her home,” added the officer.
