No headway in Japanese woman’s rape case

NEW DELHI, April 11: The identity of the youths who allegedly gangraped a Japanese woman on Wednesday remains a mystery, as the police claim that neither the victim nor the Japanese Embassy is co-operating with the investigation.

A team from the Crime Branch went to record the 25-year-old woman’s statement on Friday, but met with little success. An interpreter of Japanese from JNU also accompanied the police team. But the woman is believed to have refused to recount her ordeal because she is still in a state of shock. The police are, however, working on the sketchy description of the vehicle and the youths given by the woman soon after the incident. They are also considering the PCR call made by an eyewitness around 5.20 am on Monday. The caller had said that he had seen a Japanese woman being forced inside a blue Maruti van with tinted windows.

According to a senior police official, tracing the car has become an arduous task because the office of the State Transport Authority (STA) is closed on accountof a series of government holidays. And the STA is the only body which has the list of vehicles. The silence of the victim and the embassy has stirred up several theories about the suspected motive behind the alleged rape.