On the night of August 4, a minor student was gangraped inside a bus plying the Delhi–NCR roads. The bus (registration number UP83 ET 3789) had entered Delhi from Noida and continued to ply the roads of both cities for hours while the conductor and driver subjected the girl to brutal sexual assault.

According to reports, the Delhi Police arrested the accused within hours of the incident. However, the incident became public only on August 31 – 27 days after it occurred. The Delhi Police investigation seems to have triggered some unease within Noida police ranks, according to sources, with the latter alleging they were kept entirely in the dark and first learnt of the crime only from the media.

What the Delhi Police say happened

On August 31, Niharika Bhatt, Deputy Commissioner of Police, North Delhi, publicly disclosed details of the case. She said that on the night of August 4, a 17-year-old girl had walked into the Kashmere Gate police station and reported that she had been raped on a bus in Noida.

According to Bhatt, the victim revealed she had been travelling from Mainpuri district in Uttar Pradesh to a relative’s house in Noida’s Sector 63. She boarded a bus at Pari Chowk in Greater Noida believing it was headed to Sector 63. Instead, she was allegedly raped on board the bus. The driver and conductor eventually forced her off the bus on the Ring Road in Delhi, which lies within the jurisdiction of the Kashmere Gate police station, and fled.

Given the gravity of the case, Bhatt said that the Kashmere Gate police station moved immediately, without getting bogged down in questions of jurisdiction, claiming that they arranged the victim’s medical examination, registered a case, traced the bus through CCTV footage within hours and arrested both the accused. The girl was eventually produced before the Child Welfare Committee and handed over to her family on its orders. 

The investigation is ongoing.

A month of silence

Even as it moved quickly to register the case and make arrests, the Delhi Police kept it under wraps for the next 27 days, including from the Noida police whose jurisdiction the crime would have fallen under, going by the Delhi Police’s own account. 

Speaking to Newslaundry on condition of anonymity, an officer of the Noida police said, “We are still completely in the dark; no information was shared with the Noida police,” adding that they learnt of the case only through media reports.

Now, if the Delhi Police’s own version places the crime in Noida, a question emerges as to why the Kashmere Gate police station didn’t transfer the case after registering a zero FIR?

Another senior police officer of the Noida police alleged, “The Delhi Police should have registered a zero FIR and transferred the case to us. After that, it would have been our responsibility to arrest the accused. Instead, the Delhi Police arrested the accused, took them on remand, and sent them to jail without us even getting wind of it.”

‘We were misled at every step’

Another Noida police officer involved in the probe told Newslaundry that the Delhi Police did not merely stay silent but actively misled them. When Noida police eventually began scanning CCTV footage after learning of the case, they found nothing: the incident was by then nearly a month old, and several cameras were allegedly no longer functional.

The bus, they claimed, had been parked at a workshop in the Surajpur area of Greater Noida for roughly a week before the incident, and claimed the Delhi Police had visited this workshop during their investigation and seized all its CCTV footage. When Noida police later reached the same workshop, there was no CCTV footage left to find. 

“The bus, which had been parked at the workshop for a week, left the premises around 3:30 pm on August 4. The workshop is located about 6–7 km from the Surajpur police station,” the officer claimed, adding that the Delhi Police took away a week’s worth of CCTV footage from the workshop without informing them of their visit to the site on August 6 or 7.

On August 31, a joint team from Central Noida, Greater Noida, the SOG and the Mainpuri Police examined CCTV footage from Pari Chowk and its surrounding areas. A member of that team told Newslaundry: “From the very beginning, the Delhi Police seemed intent on suppressing the matter. The incident occurred on August 4, and the accused were in Delhi Police custody as early as August 5. Their failure to contact the UP Police raises suspicions.” The team alleges that when it asked the Delhi Police for evidence, none was shared.

Silence under political pressure?

A senior officer of the Noida police claimed that their colleagues in Delhi were under political pressure. On the day the incident in question allegedly took place, they noted that the Delhi Police was already facing criticism for its handling of the CJP protesters at Jantar Mantar. Moreover, they remarked that the Opposition was pressing the government hard in Parliament over the handling of the protest.

“During this time, if another gangrape incident came to light, it would have sparked a political uproar and created a highly uncomfortable situation for the central government. This is why the Delhi Police deliberately tried to keep the matter under wraps,” they claimed.

A former DGP’s take on the jurisdictional issues

Speaking to Newslaundry, former Haryana DGP OP Singh offered his take on the legal complexities behind this. “If the police believe that a particular course of action could potentially disrupt law and order, they tend to avoid it. Decisions in such situations are based on a combination of tactical and legal inputs; it is essentially a tactical choice.”

Singh said, “Legally, a case can be registered and investigated anywhere. However, when it comes to filing the chargesheet, the matter must be presented before the magistrate with jurisdiction over the area where the incident occurred, and the trial will take place there. If the Delhi Police has registered and investigated the case, there is nothing inherently illegal about it. Whether or not the Noida police was kept in the loop during the investigation does not alter this legal position. The Delhi Police can complete its investigation, but the subsequent filing of the chargesheet and the trial will take place in the jurisdiction where the incident occurred.”

On the Delhi Police’s alleged delay in sharing information, Singh said, “If the Delhi Police withheld information about this case from the UP Police for 25–27 days, this would be a major issue for the investigation. It remains to be seen whether this was done to prevent an uproar, avoid a breakdown of law and order, or keep the matter hidden from the media.”

The distance between Pari Chowk in Greater Noida and Kashmere Gate is roughly 47 km, and footage from over 400 CCTV cameras along this stretch is now being scrutinised. Crucially, investigators have still not been able to establish the bus’s actual route, which means the police do not yet know exactly where along this stretch the assault itself took place. It was a sleeper bus fitted with curtains, police told Newslaundry.

Victim’s family avoiding the media

According to the Delhi Police, the victim is a class 11 student living with her family in a village in Mainpuri district, Uttar Pradesh. According to her statement, her mother scolded her on August 3. Angered by her mother’s scolding, she left home the next day intending to reach her uncle’s house in Noida’s Sector 63. 

However, rains and the lack of street lights in the area led her to get off at the wrong stop, Pari Chowk, where she boarded a bus after the conductor told her it was headed to Sector 63. According to the police, shortly after the bus started moving, the conductor allegedly began molesting her, and she was subsequently raped during the nearly 47 km journey from Pari Chowk in Greater Noida to the Kashmere Gate area. The accused then allegedly forced her off the bus on the Ring Road in Delhi and fled. The police arrested the driver Kuldeep and the conductor Sandeep, from the Timarpur parking area.

Local media reports indicate the victim’s family has since left their village. They were last seen at home during Raksha Bandhan, but the house is now locked. Neither the family nor their relatives are willing to speak about the case, and the victim’s father’s phone is switched off. It is reported that the police have advised the family not to speak to anyone.

This is the second gangrape on a moving bus in Delhi in three months; a 30-year-old factory worker was gangraped on a moving bus prior to this incident.

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