Housewife gangraped,burnt

The victim’s younger sister,Mary Reddy,who stays with her husband at Vile Parle but was visiting her parents’ house at Sion-Koliwada witnessed the offence. The victim’s husband is a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation sweeper and the couple has two children,aged three and one-and-a-half years.

“My sister came to our parents’ house on Monday morning,and she asked me to come to her flat nearby for dinner. I went there around 6.30 pm,saw the doors and windows tightly shut but could hear sounds of a scuffle. I peeped in through a small hole in the door to see four men stripping my sister and raping her,” Reddy said.

She ran back home to fetch her parents but they were not at home. “When I came back,I saw three men holding my sister and the fourth dousing her in kerosene and setting her on fire. While I ran downstairs,the men came out of the flat and ran away. We rushed her to Sion Hospital with the help of neighbours.”

The victim said in her declaration that she knew all the accused since 2004 when Nitya approached her father to seek her hand in marriage. “My parents rejected the proposal as he neither had a job nor a good reputation. In 2005,I got married but Nitya continued to harass me even after that. After my husband would leave for work,he and his aides used to call me or bang on the door of my house,asking me to go out with them but I never allowed them entry. I never spoke out about the harassment as I feared for my family’s safety,” she said.

According to her statement,on Monday,Nitya asked her to meet him at Mahim around 11 am but she didn’t go. In the evening,Nitya along with his two brothers -— Rajesh and Kumar — and friend Shankar arrived at her house with a can of kerosene. “Despite repeated orders I refused to go out with them; they thrashed me,stripped me and raped me one by one. Rajesh,Shankar and Kumar held my hands when I told them not to do this to me and threatened them with police action; they emptied the can on me and set me ablaze. While I was crying for help,the four ran away,” Nadiya said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police,Zone IV,Sanjay Baviskar said,“We are awaiting the medical reports.”