Rapists robbed a man before picking up victim and friend; 4 held, 2 on the run

THE Delhi Police Tuesday held two more persons for the gangrape of a 23-year-old in a moving bus in Delhi, taking the total number of arrests in the case to four. Two others are absconding and the police have sent teams to Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh to catch them.

Police said all the accused knew each other, had consumed alcohol on the bus, and were out on a "joyride" after running out of liquor when they picked up the couple, later raping and torturing the woman and assaulting her friend. They said the accused had also robbed a carpenter after giving him a lift on the bus shortly before they picked up the couple.

The police have registered a case of attempted murder, gangrape, unnatural sex, kidnapping, wrongful confinement and robbery.

The woman's condition continues to be critical, with a sharp drop in her platelet count indicating the start of severe infection. While she showed slight improvement on Tuesday morning, and wrote notes to communicate, she took a turn for the worse by the afternoon. Doctors have increased ventilator support.

One of the accused, Ram Singh, was produced in court and sent in five-day police custody. The police said they needed Singh's custody to help catch "two or three remaining accused" as well as to recover the mobile phones and ATM cards of the victims which remain missing. The police will also ask him to identify the clothes he was wearing at the time of the alleged assault.

Singh refused to undergo a Test Identification Parade on Tuesday.

The other accused who have been arrested include Ram Singh's brother Mukesh, an assistant gym instructor at the Siri Fort Sports Complex called Vinay Sharma, and a fruit seller, Pawan Gupta. Mukesh was held from Rajasthan, while the other three were arrested from Delhi. The four will be produced in court Wednesday morning. All four who are between the ages of 20 and 30 live in the same slum colony of R K Puram Sector 3 in south Delhi. While Ram Singh was the driver of the bus, the vehicle was allegedly being driven by Mukesh at the time of the incident.

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