The Uttarakhand Police arrested five individuals on Sunday in connection with the alleged gang rape of a teenage girl on a government bus at the Interstate Bus Terminal (ISBT) in Dehradun, according to reports from news agency PTI.
Dehradun’s Senior Superintendent of Police, Ajay Singh, confirmed the arrests, which included two other bus drivers and a cashier employed at the Dehradun ISBT.
The incident occurred on August 12, but the authorities only became aware of it when they were informed on Saturday. According to police, the Dehradun Child Welfare Committee (CWC) was notified about a teenage girl found sitting alone late at night on a bench at the ISBT. The girl was taken to Bal Niketan, a government-run girls’ home, where she revealed the details of the alleged rape during a counselling session.
Following the girl’s account, a First Information Report (FIR) was filed at the Patel Nagar police station under section 70 (2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, based on a complaint from a CWC member.
The police quickly initiated an investigation, identifying the bus involved by reviewing CCTV footage, which led to the arrest of the five accused individuals.
The arrested suspects have been identified as Dharmendra Kumar (32) and Rajpal (57), both residents of Buggawala in Haridwar, Uttarakhand; Devendra (52), a resident of Bhagwanpur in Haridwar; Rajesh Kumar Sonkar (38), a Dehradun resident; and Ravi Kumar (34), from Nawabganj in Uttar Pradesh’s Farrukhabad district.
Dharmendra Kumar, the driver of the bus where the incident occurred, and Devendra, the conductor, were among those arrested. Ravi Kumar and Rajpal, who are drivers of other buses, and Sonkar, a cashier at Uttarakhand Roadways, were also implicated.
The girl initially informed the police that she was an orphan from Punjab but later disclosed that she was from Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh. She recounted that she had first traveled to Delhi before boarding a bus to Dehradun, where she was allegedly assaulted.
According to Superintendent Ajay Singh, one of the accused, Devendra, reported that he had encountered the girl at the Kashmiri Gate ISBT in Delhi. She asked him for directions to Punjab, and he suggested that she travel to Dehradun first and then continue toward Punjab. After arriving in Dehradun and as the passengers disembarked, Devendra and the bus driver, Dharmendra, allegedly raped her. Two other bus drivers, Ravi and Rajpal, who were nearby, learned of the situation and also allegedly assaulted the girl.
Devendra later mentioned the incident to the cashier while depositing money, and the cashier allegedly assaulted the girl as well.
