Two Held for Gang-Raping 16-Year-Old on Bus from Pari Chowk to Delhi
The driver and conductor of a sleeper bus have been arrested for allegedly gang-raping a 16-year-old girl after misleading her into boarding the vehicle at Pari Chowk in Greater Noida, Delhi Police announced on Monday. The incident, which occurred during a 47-kilometre journey ending near Kashmere Gate in Delhi, has triggered a jurisdictional dispute between Delhi Police and the Gautam Buddh Nagar police force.
According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Niharika Bhatt, the survivor, a Class 11 student from Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh, had left home on August 3 without informing her family after being reprimanded by her mother over studies. She intended to travel to her cousin’s home in Sector 63, Noida.
Investigators said the girl accidentally got off at Pari Chowk as darkness fell and rain started. When she flagged down an approaching bus, the conductor allegedly told her the vehicle was heading toward Sector 63. She boarded the bus, which was carrying no other passengers.
Police said that shortly after the bus began moving, the conductor behaved inappropriately before both he and the driver sexually assaulted the girl inside the moving vehicle. The men allegedly threatened to kill her when she resisted. The bus traveled from Pari Chowk along the Greater Noida-Noida Expressway, crossed into Delhi via the Chilla border, passed Mayur Vihar, and reached the Ring Road near the Kashmere Gate Inter-State Bus Terminal, where the girl was dropped off in the early hours of August 4.
Officers noted that curtains covered the bus windows, preventing people outside from seeing what was happening. After being dropped off, the teenager approached the Kashmere Gate police station. Delhi Police registered an FIR under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and conducted her medical examination.
Using CCTV footage, Delhi Police traced the bus to a parking lot in Timarpur, where both accused were arrested within four hours. The suspects, both in their early 20s and originally from Kanpur, claimed they had taken the bus to a workshop in Surajpur for mechanical repairs and were returning to Timarpur when they spotted the girl.
Greater Noida police officials subsequently stated that the Delhi Police did not inform them of the incident before making the arrests public, despite the alleged offence occurring in the Gautam Buddh Nagar commissionerate area. A Greater Noida police officer said they are reviewing CCTV footage from Pari Chowk. Responding to the criticism, Delhi Joint Commissioner of Police Madhur Verma stated that under BNS provisions, crimes against women can be registered and investigated where reported, adding that the vehicle was seized and the suspects remain in jail.
