Pune bus rape accused Dattatray Ramdas Gade called the 26-year-old woman ‘didi’ (sister) and took her to an empty ‘Shiv Shahi’ bus parked at the Swargate depot and raped her, the police told court on Friday.
According to a PTI report, the 37-year-old accused faces half a dozen criminal cases in Pune and Ahilyanagar districts, and was clearly seen in the CCTV footage of the bus terminus on the day of the incident.
According to the police, data of the mobile phone he was using was yet to be recovered. The police stated that out of the half a dozen cases registered against Gade, women are complainants in five of them.
On Friday, a Pune court sent Gade to police custody till March 12. He was nabbed from a paddy field following an extensive search operation carried out with the help of drones and sniffer dogs around midnight on Thursday in Shirur tehsil of Pune district.
Besides harnessing technology, 13 police teams were deployed as part of the search operation, but human intelligence proved decisive in nabbing the accused, another official told PTI.
He was formally arrested and produced before the Pune Sessions Court amid heavy police security. The police submitted a remand application to the court and sought Gade’s custody for 14 days.
Scared with police action, he attempted suicide by hanging himself with a dry tree in a field, but the rope was broken and his attempt was in vain.
“According to the primary medical report, a ligature mark was found on the accused. It is suspected that he attempted suicide. We are waiting for the final report,” Pune police commissioner Amitesh Kumar was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
“The search operation in sugarcane fields with drones and dog squads was stopped at night. However, we received information that Gade had visited a house asking for food. We rushed to the spot, but he managed to flee. The family in the house gave him a bottle of water,” the official added.
What defence counsel argued
According to the PTI report, advocate Wajid Khan, appearing for the accused, told the court his client was facing a media trial and claimed the complainant herself went inside the bus.
“A physical relationship was established (between them) with mutual consent,” Khan told the court.