Varanasi: There is now a strange twist to the case of the 19-year-old student from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh who claimed that she was abducted, drugged, kept confined and gang raped by 23 men over seven days.
The police have now stopped arresting more people for their involvement after coming to know that the survivor was active on social media during that seven-day ordeal. The report from a Special Investigation Team (SIT) is now awaited.
Fourteen people have already been arrested in this high profile case that saw the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Initial investigations revealed that the student was drugged and abducted on March 29 from a hookah bar. She was then kept confined at several locations in a drugged state while the men raped her. This continued till April 4, when she was finally rescued.
The police have now come across a social media video from March 31, showing the girl with three of the accused outside a restaurant. A fourth is making the video. Other video clips show the survivor moving around in an apparently normal state with the accused, during the period of her confinement.
A CCTV footage also purportedly shows the girl riding a motorcycle. Family members of one of the accused have claimed that she herself sent him a message, asking him to come to a certain cafe. The families have also questioned why she initially named 23 persons but finally identified only nine in her court testimony.
The families also claimed that the survivor demanded money from some of the accused for not mentioning their names.
Even the police were a bit surprised that the girl did not mention rape or her family immediately after being rescued. Only after a long time did she agree to return to her family.
Varanasi police commissioner Mohit Agarwal has confirmed to the media that further arrests have been kept on hold till the SIT submits its report.
