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Delhi teen’s rape: Retd Army subedar held, police suspect he targeted couples in parks
The woman alleged that she was raped and her friend assaulted and robbed by the man, who she said, had approached them in khaki uniform claiming they were indulging in obscenity and threatened to file a complaint against them.
indianexpress.com
Delhi teen’s rape: Retd Army subedar held, police suspect he targeted couples in parks
The woman alleged that she was raped and her friend assaulted and robbed by the man, who she said, had approached them in khaki uniform claiming they were indulging in obscenity and threatened to file a complaint against them.
Updated: February 13, 2022 4:07:49 am
The Delhi Police has arrested a 38-year-old retired Army subedar for allegedly posing as a policeman and raping a 19-year-old woman at a park in Dwarka last month.
The investigating team found that the accused, who contractually works with the Haryana government’s sports department as a wrestling coach, would frequent public parks in South Delhi and Rohini in the evening. It is suspected that he has targeted other couples there to extort money.
On January 28, the woman and her friend were sitting inside a DDA park when the accused approached them wearing a khaki uniform and threatened to charge them, saying they were indulging in obscenity. The incident took place at around 7.30 pm.The woman alleged in her complaint that the man then assaulted her friend and demanded Rs 11,000 as a “fine”. He allegedly sent the woman’s friend to get the cash and molested her. When her friend came back, the accused collected the money and assaulted him again. He forced the friend to leave and then allegedly raped the woman. The woman said she managed to escape eventually.
Police said she told her mother about the incident a day later, and an FIR was registered on February 4.
Police identified the accused as Rajesh Kumar, who joined the Army in 2002 under the sports quota and left in 2019. Since then, he has been a wrestling coach in Gurgaon on a contractual basis. He lives in Gurgaon with his wife and two children and was arrested from his home, police said.
In the days following the incident, police had few leads. A team was sent to collect CCTV footage from cameras near the spot, and they spotted the accused in an Ertiga car. But the quality of the footage wasn’t good enough to read the registration number. Footage from other CCTVs on the route was either overwritten or lost, an officer said.
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The team then called informers and personnel to share details of “suspicious” persons in the area. A police constable from Dwarka shared photos of a man, his driver’s licence and other details, saying he was found walking near a park, had a Swift Dzire car, and that his activities were “suspicious”. The inputs from the constable were corroborated by a street vendor, also a police informer, who told officers that he had spotted a suspicious looking man in a Swift Dzire roaming near parks.
Police said they reached the address mentioned in the licence, but couldn’t find anyone.
Shankar Choudhary, DCP (Dwarka), said, “More than 20 teams were working on the case. We had scanned CCTVs, spoke to informers, and simultaneously analysed beat books and other diaries to identify the accused. We went to the car showroom to get details about the owner. We found that the accused had sold the car and bought a new Ertiga. We found a mobile number and analysed call detail records. The suspect was in touch with a friend. We went to his friend’s place and got his address. A team was sent and they found the Ertiga parked outside the house. Kumar was arrested.”
According to police, during interrogation, Kumar confessed to raping the woman. He told police he planned to extort money from couples at the park, but raped the woman after her friend left and she was alone.
“He also made a call from her phone to his to get her name. We matched the call records from his phone. We have also recovered the khaki pants he wore. More than 20 teams worked on the case. We found that the accused would wear khaki pants to scare and mislead couples. He would often go to parks in other areas too,” added the DCP.
