Noida gangrape: 9 men acquitted due to botched up probe

New Delhi: A Noida police officer left "no stone unturned" to botch up the investigation in a 2009 case of gangrape of a 24-year-old MBA student that has led to the acquittal of nine persons by a Delhi court on the grounds that the identity of the real culprits could not be proved.

The court pulled up the police for not following proper procedure of law while investigating the matter and said no judicial Test Identification Parade (TIP) of the accused was conducted by the investigating officer (IO).

The court held that the IO had left "no stone unturned for making this case impossible to be proved" and directed Noida Senior Superintendent of Police to take appropriate action against IO, inspector Anil Samaniya, for his improper probe in the case.

"These factors clearly show that due to the negligent, casual and unprofessional investigation conducted by the IO, real culprits of the case could not be identified/arrested or subjected to administration of justice," Additional Sessions Judge Shail Jain said, adding that this was "a classic case" of botched up investigation carried out by the IO.

However, the judge was all praise for Special Public Prosecutor Neelam Narang, saying she provided valuable, substantial and useful help in explaining the lengthy case in a summarised manner.

Though the girl had identified all the accused before the court during the recording of her testimony, the judge said their identification by her was "doubtful" as the alleged crime was committed in the night in a forest area where there was no source of light.

According to the prosecution, the incident took place on the evening of January 5, 2009, when the girl along with her male friend, was returning from the Great India Place Mall in their car which was forcibly stopped by several youths who were returning on their motorcycles after a cricket match.

Brandishing cricket bats, four of these boys sat in the car and started beating the girl and her friend, pushed them to the back seat and drove the car to a secluded place near urban Noida village Garhi Chaukhandi, police said.

At the isolated place, their other associates also joined and 11 persons allegedly gangraped the girl and took away their valuables like mobile phones, wrist watch and ATM cards, it said. The complaint was lodged with the Noida Police by the victim's friend.

The accused in the case were Pushpender alias Tuiyan, Srikant, Sanjay, Gautam, Sudhir, Little, Omkar and Pushpender, Sashikant, Golu and a juvenile, all residents of Garhi Chaukhandi. All of them were on bail, while accused Pushpinder alias Tuiyan died during the trial.