Mumbai gangrape: Police press charge under IT Act against accused

Mumbai: The Mumbai police today added an offence under the Information Technology Act to the charges in the photojournalist gang-rape case, as one of the four accused had allegedly showed a porn video clip to the survivor during the crime on August 22. Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam today told the court that prosecution wanted to add a charge under section 67A of IT Act (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act in electronic form). [caption id=“attachment_1167489” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Mumbai gangrape protests. PTI. [/caption] It was not a part of draft charges against the accused – Vijay Jadhav, Kasim Bengali, Salim Ansari and Siraj Rehman – that the prosecution filed yesterday. “This charge of section 67A is only against Ansari as he was the one who showed porn clips to survivor,” Nikam said. Principal Sessions judge Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi today framed charges on 13 counts, including gang-rape with criminal conspiracy, unnatural offence, forcing the victim for oral sex, wrongful restraint, destruction of evidence and the offence under the IT Act. All the accused pleaded innocent in the court today. Advocate Nikam said the court has directed four witnesses in the case to appear on Monday. “It does not include the survivor,” he added. The 22-year-old photojournalist was gang-raped by the five accused including a juvenile (whose trial would be held before the Juvenile Justice Board) when she had gone to the deserted Shakti Mills compound here on August 22 with a male colleague on an assignment. PTI