“The accused have confessed to their crime but as of now we don’t enough evidence against them. We are relying on scientific evidence which we will get soon. We have sent the samples of their semen to match with samples we collected from the rape victims. Four of the suspects had been absconding after committing a similar offence in Sanand last year,” said Gagandeep Gambhir, Superintendent of Police (SP), at a press conference.
Police have identified the arrested persons as Chanubhai Hemabhai Vedhwa (45), Keshubhai Hemabhai Vedhwa (55), his two sons Mahesh (25) and Ramesh (20) and Valku Shivabhai Vedhwa (20), all residents of Saida village of Botad taluka in Bhavnagar district.
Police said two more suspects were still at large.
The accused belong to a tribal community that mostly leads a nomadic life.
Interestingly, four different teams of rural police were looking for the suspects in Mehsana, Patan, Bhavnagar, Rajkot and Vadodara but they nabbed them near Sarkhej-Sanand crossroads in Ahmedabad while they were on their way back home in Bhavnagar district.
R B Brahmbhatt, Inspector General of Ahmedabad Range, who was also present in conference said following the arrest Director General of Police Chitranjan Singh announced to reward Rs 25,000 to the police teams for cracking the case early.
Last week, seven men had allegedly gangraped three tribal women and a 17-year-old minor, all residents of Barvada taluka in Dahod district, at Hansalpur village in Viramgam.
The accused first robbed the victims, held their men hostage and allegedly raped them.
A similar offence had taken place at Chekhla village in Sanand last year in which two women were gang-raped and robbed in similar manner. In this case also the victims were tribals and working at construction sites as labourers.
Police have also claimed that the accused have confessed to have committed more than 40 loots, murder and rapes in various parts of the state. According to Brahmbhatt, many rape victims don’t approach the police out of shame. He also claimed that the worst part of this gang is that even father and son are involved in rape incident in Viramgam.