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Journalism of Courage
NAGPUR, MARCH 6: The Government Railway Police (GRP) on Friday nabbed the fourth suspect involved in the gang-rape of a 17-year-old girl in an AC coach of the Gondwana Express, idling in the railway yard at Nagpur Station, shortly after midnight of March 1.
He was identified as Kishore Dnyaneshwar Mendhe (23), a khalasi attached to the Electrical Department of the Central Railway at Nagpur.
Mendhe along with another suspect, Kuldip Bagga, raped the girl while their two aides, Ravindra Pinja and Kailash Choube stood guard at the site, police said.
Bagga, Pinja and Choube, all Central Railway employees hailing from Delhi and Haryana and on duty aboard the Gondwana Express, were held the same night but Mendhe had managed to give the slip to the GRP team that reached the site on being alerted by the girl’s companion.
Reliable GRP sources told The Indian Express that Mendhe has admitted his involvement in the heinous act. He came to know the rest of the three suspects over the last few days since theystarted doing trips to Nagpur on duty.
It was Mendhe who first noticed the girl and her companion idling at the lonely platform no 7 around half-past midnight of March 1 while waiting for their passenger train to Dhamangaon which was scheduled in the wee hours.Mendhe asked them to accompany him to platform no. 1 instead of waiting on the lonely platform. However, when they walked a few distance ahead, he came across Bagga, Pinja and Choube and soon the foursome started forcing the girl to the AC coach of the train, kept sidelined in the yard.Mendhe and Bagga took turns to rape her by the time when the girl’s companion could inform the railway police station and a police team could reach the incident site.
After it was prima facie established that the culprits were railway employees, the GRP maintained a close scrutiny on the employees who were absent from duty ever since the incident and commenced a check accordingly. The GRP team, head by sub-inspector S S Mhaisekar, zeroed in on Mendhe and picked himfrom his residence at Khalasi Lines on Friday afternoon, sources said. Later, Mendhe was taken to the court for police custody remand.
