Dombivli gang-rape case: Two more accused nabbed from Navi Mumbai; total arrests rise to 28

Mumbai: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Thane Police has arrested two more persons in connection with the alleged blackmailing and repeated gang-rape of a 15-year-old girl , an official said on Friday. With this, the number of arrested persons went up to 26, while two minors have also been detained. The girl was allegedly raped multiple times at different places in Thane district including Dombivli, Badlapur, Murbad and Rabale between 29 January and 22 September this year. The survivor has named 33 men as accused, police had said on Thursday. “We have arrested two more persons. Both were nabbed from Navi Mumbai on Thursday night, one of them from Rabale area. So far, 26 persons have been arrested and two minors detained. Search is on for remaining accused,” a police official said. Based on the girl’s complaint, the Manpada police in Dombivli on Wednesday registered a case against 33 persons under IPC sections 376 (rape), 376 (n) (repeated rape), 376 (d) (gang-rape), 376 (3) (rape on a woman under sixteen years of age) and provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. As per the girl’s statement to police, she met main accused Vijay Phuke and Tushar Kasbe in December 2020 through a common friend, and Phuke began to chat with her on mobile phone. On 29 January, Phuke called her to a spot in Dombivli East and took her in an auto rickshaw saying they were going to meet their common friend. But she was taken to some other place where four persons including Phuke gang-raped her, she alleged. The accused blackmailed her by threatening to circulate her pictures and recorded a video of the sexual assault on their mobile phones, she said. In February, the girl’s family shifted to another residence. On 20 February, Phuke called and asked her to meet him. When she refused, he accosted her near her new house the next day, and threatened to show her video to her family members, she alleged. Scared, she agreed to go with him and was sexually assaulted by at least eight men this time, she told police. Similar incidents happened on 22 March, 5 and 16 May, 28 July and 22 September, and sometimes she was given sedatives before she was raped, she claimed. On 5 May, when she did not return home at night, her mother had even filed a missing person complaint, but the girl returned the next day and did not tell anything to her parents. In one instance, she saw Phuke and a co-accused taking Rs 1,000 from a friend after they forced her to have sex with him, she said. She finally mustered courage to speak to her mother about the ordeal on 22 September after which the offense was registered and probe began, the official added.