Delhi gangrape: Railways unable to give CCTV footage of accused

New Delhi: A special court hearing the 16 December gangrape case was today told by the India Railways that it cannot provide the CCTV footage of the platform from where one of the accused claimed to have left Delhi in a train. The accused Akshay Thakur has claimed that he had left Delhi prior to the sexual assault of the 23-year-old girl. Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna had yesterday directed the Northern Railways to produce the CCTV footage of 15 December, 2012, in the court after accused Akshay Thakur sought that the footage of New Delhi Railway Station be ordered to establish that he had left Delhi on that day by Maha Bodhi Express. However, the railway authority told the court that it only preserves the CCTV footage for 30 days, so it cannot provide the same. “In pursuance of my order on 18 July for procuring of CCTV footage of the platform departure of Maha Bodhi Express. Railway Police Force (RPF) have not preserved such records as such is done for only 30 days,” the judge, while referring the report from railway authority, said. [caption id=“attachment_970621” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] In this file photo, a Delhi police van with the accused inside is seen. AFP[/caption] Besides this, the recording of statement of the defence witnesses on behalf of Pawan Gupta did not take place due to failure of his counsel Vivek Sharma to turn up with witnesses. The plea of Pawan for calling seven defence witnesses to prove his innocence was allowed by the court yesterday. Due to the absence of defence counsel, Special Public Prosecutor Dayan Krishnan requested the judge to close the recording of defence witness’ statements on behalf of Pawan. “Though Special Public Prosecutor objects and says defence witness be closed, I have given two days each to accused Pawan Gupta and Akshay Thakur. “In that case, tomorrow he (Pawan’s counsel) should produce all the defence witnesses, if any,” the judge said while directing Pawan’s advocate to conclude on his behalf by tomorrow. The court, which has concluded recording of statement of Mukesh, Pawan, Akshay and Vinay Sharma in the case, has allowed them to produce witnesses in their defence. Initially, the court was trying driver Ram Singh, Vinay, Akshay, Pawan and Mukesh, all of whom had allegedly gangraped the girl in a moving bus here. The victim died of injuries on 29 December last year while undergoing treatment in a Singapore hospital. During the trial, Ram Singh was found dead in Tihar Jail on 11 March and court proceedings against him stand abated. The sixth accused, a juvenile, faced an inquiry before the juvenile justice board here. PTI