Minor's rape: Accused sent to judicial custody till May 9

New Delhi, April 27: A court here Saturday sent one of the accused in the brutal gang-rape of a five-year-old girl to judicial custody till May 9.

Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Garg remanded Pradeep to judicial custody for 12 days after police said that he was not required for further interrogation.

The court, during the hearing asked the investigating officer what information have been gathered from the accused during his four-day police custody and what all places he was taken to.

It was told that the mobile phone of both Pradeep and prime accused Manoj Sah, has been recovered by the police and they both have also been confronted with each other to know the chain of events.

Mukesh is in police custody till April 30.

Both the accused were taken to several places in Delhi including the metro stations where they had gone after committing the crime, the investigating officer told the court.

Police also moved an application for recording the statement of key witness in the case under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

Abhishek is the key witness in the case in whose presence the victim was rescued from the locked room in the building in Gandhi Nagar area of east Delhi.

The court marked the application for recording of statement to the concerned chief metropolitan magistrate.

Under section 164 CrPC, the statement of a witness is recorded by a magistrate and is admissible as evidence during trial.

Pradeep, 19, was arrested April 20 from Bihar's Lakhisarai district where he was hiding at his maternal uncle's house.

Police said that Manoj, from whose rented room the girl was rescued two days after she went missing April 15, had blamed Pradeep for the brutal attack on the child.

Manoj had also admitted that on the day of the incident, the two had been drinking and struck up the idea of finding a girl. When they came out of the room, they saw the five-year-old playing, according to police.

Manoj said that it was he who lured the girl by offering her chocolate, but blamed Pradeep for the rape.

Manoj was held April 20 from his in-laws' house in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district.

The girl was abducted and kept hostage for two days without food and water in the room in which the attacker lived on the ground floor of a building in Gandhi Nagar. The girl's family stays in the same building, police said.

The girl was rescued when members of her family heard her screams April 17.

IANS