‘Third such claim, no internal injuries’ — evidence of ‘frame-up’ grows in Ghaziabad rape case

Ghaziabad Police claim to have uncovered a complex property feud involving the woman and her Muslim lover. Main motive of alleged frame-up, they say, was to take over the property.

File photo of crowd outside the disputed house at Delhi's Kabir Nagar | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Ghaziabad/New Delhi: The medical examination of a Delhi woman who claimed to have been gangraped by five men over two days in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, found no evidence of internal injuries, sources in the Ghaziabad Police told ThePrint.

The examination, conducted at the government-run GTB Hospital, has also established that the “iron rod” the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) claimed had been inserted in her vagina was in fact a U-shaped metallic device. While an official from GTB Hospital confirmed a “small foreign object” had been recovered, Ghaziabad Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Muniraj G. said it was a tongue-cleaner.

Police sources said that while the medico-legal case (MLC) report mentions “bite marks” on the woman’s chest, Azad, one of the accused and her alleged lover, had told investigators that the bites were “self-inflicted”.

The investigation had also revealed that the vehicle used for the woman’s alleged abduction had been at its parking spot on the day of the alleged crime and the mobile tower locations of the “abductors” did not place them at the crime scene, police said.

News of the woman’s alleged abduction and gangrape, which had come to light last week, went viral on social media, prompting DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal to issue a notice to the Ghaziabad Police, asking for details of action and arrests of the accused.

Days after the alleged gangrape was reported, police arrested the 38-year-old woman for allegedly attempting to frame five men — Shahrukh, Aurangzeb, Javed, Dinu and Dhola — in the rape case. While some media reports have given the case a communal overtone, the main motive of the alleged frame-up, according to the police, was to grab a disputed property for which two civil cases are being heard in court.

Three men — Azad Tehsin from Delhi, Gaurav Sharan from Noida and Mohammad Afzal from Ghaziabad — were also arrested for allegedly helping the woman fabricate evidence. The woman and her three associates had been planning to frame the men for around four months, police sources said.

The MLC report and other evidence have been sent for forensic opinion. Police sources said they will soon be filing a closure report along with a petition in the high court to quash the rape FIR.

The Ghaziabad Police also revealed that the woman had made two previous attempts to “frame the men in a false case of rape”.

“She [the woman] had earlier as well tried to frame these [five] men in cases in Delhi. She tried to file complaints with Delhi Police but couldn’t succeed. This is the third of their similar pre-planned attempts,” said Ghaziabad SSP Muniraj G.

Police claim they have uncovered a complex picture of a property feud involving the woman and her Muslim lover who together allegedly targeted other Muslims.

“If the cops had not investigated the case properly, they [the men arrested initially] would be in jail,” Shabila, a neighbour of the five men, told ThePrint.

According to the police, the woman wanted to use the allegation of rape to pressure the family of Javed and Shahrukh into settling a dispute involving property worth ₹53 lakh. Located in Delhi’s Kabir Nagar, the property is home to Shamina, the mother of Javed and Shahrukh.

“In the course of investigation, a person known to the rape survivor revealed the conspiracy,” Ghaziabad Superintendent of Police (Crime) Deeksha Sharma told ThePrint.

CCTV, electronic evidence point at inconsistencies 

Ghaziabad police officers told ThePrint CCTV footage established that the black SUV allegedly used by the “abductors” did not leave its parking spot on 16 October, the day the woman claimed to have been kidnapped. The vehicle is owned by Deenu, a property dealer involved in the Kabir Nagar dispute.

Ghaziabad (City) Superintendent of Police Nipun Aggarwal told ThePrint that “mobile locations of the suspects were tracked and it was found that they weren’t in Ghaziabad during that time frame [of the alleged crime]”.

Police sources said that based on CCTV footage, changing statements of the woman, GPS locations and her refusal to undergo a medical test on the first two instances, they concluded that the story is fabricated with intentions of framing the five men.

“She kept insisting that she will undergo the test in GTB Hospital in Delhi. On the way, she kept telling the police officers where to go exactly. She kept changing her statements multiple times,” one of the sources said.

The source added that the probe revealed that the woman was in Delhi during the same time frame. “After she was dropped off (after her alleged rape), Azad waited to see who would spot her. He is seen in a video clip as well. GPS location of Gaurav’s car used to bring the woman to Ghaziabad also showed the route taken. He also made a call to a Delhi-based reporter and paid Rs 5,000 through an online transaction. Action has been initiated against the journalist as well.”

The woman had claimed that after she was gangraped, she was tied up in a gunny bag and dumped on the roadside in Ghaziabad.

Police sources said that the three accused men who were part of the alleged conspiracy, have revealed details about the frame-up during questioning.

The property dispute

Shamina, the mother of two of the rape accused, quoted earlier, said she had been living in the property — over which they are embroiled in a legal dispute with the accused woman — for the past 35-40 years and her family has been paying electricity bills and house tax for the two-storey building.

However, this claim was rejected by the arrested woman’s family who insist she is the owner. The five accused, they claim, occupied it forcibly and have been threatening her to withdraw the court case.

Shamina said that her family took a loan of Rs 2 lakh from accused Azad — who also runs a tailoring business on the property — at a 10 per cent interest and claimed to have paid it back in monthly installments of Rs 20,000.

“Azad gave us money from his ‘saala’ (brother-in-law) and got me to sign the power of attorney (of the disputed property) about a year ago,” Shamina said, adding that she paid back the entire money but is yet to receive the documents.

Her daughter Shayda meanwhile said that her mother was “uneducated”, and that Azad fraudulently got her to “sign some documents”.

(Edited by Tony Rai)