THE PUNJAB and Haryana High Court has ordered the Mohali SSP to ensure that the accused, who are evading arrest, in the gangrape case of a 21-year-old woman are arrested soon and asked the police to submit a status report on the matter before March 15. “In the meanwhile the SSP, Mohali, shall continue to ensure that the life and liberty of the petitioner is duly protected,” the High Court said in the order passed last week. The woman had been abducted from her home at a Mohali village and raped by three men. The incident had taken place just a few days before her marriage in November last year. She had approached the High Court last month stating that the police had failed to initiate any action in the matter. Taking a strong note of the plea, the High Court had summoned the SSP and asked him “to answer as to why it takes a direction from the High Court for the police to take any action on an FIR registered two months earlier”. SSP Kuldeep Singh Chahal during the resumed hearing of the case on February 14 informed the High Court that one accused had been arrested in the case while search against the other accused was going on. Chahal told the court that the investigation was delayed because the case file had been summoned by the AIG (investigation) after the woman had also made representation to the Punjab DGP. Following the complaint, the police in November had booked three persons for allegedly gangraping the woman. The accused had abducted her and taken her to a secluded place where they committed the crime. The accused were identified as Gursewak Singh, his brother Gurjinder Singh and their friend Parminder Singh alias Golu. The woman, a second year student of Bachelor of Arts, in her complaint had stated that she lives at her house with her parents and is pursuing her studies through correspondence. She told the police that she was studying at her home on the intervening night of November 13 and 14 and around 10 pm she heard some noises near their room where she was studying. “My parents had slept by that time. I peeped through the window to see what was happening outside but I could not see anything. Then I opened the door but suddenly two persons caught me. One held my arms while the other made me sniff a handkerchief. After sniffing the handkerchief, I got unconscious,” the victim had said in her complaint, adding that the accused took her in a car and then raped her during the night in a room, and later threatened her not to reveal anything to anyone about the incident. A case against the three accused under sections 328 (causing hurt by means of poison), 363 (kidnapping) and 376-D (gangrape) was registered following the complaint before the police. For all the latest Chandigarh News, download Indian Express App

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