20-yr-old girl on job hunt raped by driver in car flaunting MHA sticker

NEW DELHI: A 20-year-old girl, who was on a job search, was allegedly raped in a car in South Delhi’s Moti Bagh area. The victim was raped after she was lured into the car by the driver on the pretext of dropping her at her destination, in the vehicle, which apparently had a free run for hours in Lutyens and South Delhi. Police later arrested the accused identified as Avneesh (28) and registered a case under IPC Section 376 (rape). According to police, the victim, a resident of Noida who had come to Delhi looking for a job, was waiting for a bus near AIIMS on Wednesday evening when Avneesh, driving a car which had a sticker of the Home Ministry, offered to drop her. Police said the accused person is the driver of a man whose father works in the Central Industrial Security Force. The sticker was reportedly arranged by the car owner for Avneesh. Avneesh raped the girl inside the car in a secluded area but she managed to flee around midnight and was found by a police patrol team which brought her to the South Campus police station in the wee hours of Thursday. The incident came to light on Friday, the fourth anniversary of the horrific Nirbhaya gang-rape. According to sources, the victim claimed that Avneesh roamed  the streets of Delhi for almost two hours. “In the intervening night of Wednesday-Thursday, at 1.30 am, a motorcycle patrol party of police station South Campus was flagged down by a lady in distress,” said joint commissioner R P Upadhyay. “The accused was later located in a jhuggi at Moti Bagh (South) area where he was about to begin drinking with a friend,” added Upadhayay. Avneesh belongs to Etah in Uttar Pradesh, but has been staying in Delhi for the last three-four years. He is married and has two children. Earlier, he was working as a school cab driver. “The car is a private vehicle. The owner’s father works in the Central Industrial Security Force and is posted in Delhi. We will be questioning them about the sticker. If it has been procured illegally, action will be taken,” said Ishwar Singh, DCP (South) . The incident has punctured the claims of the government and Delhi Police after the Nirbhaya incident in 2012. The mother of Nirbhaya said nothing has changed in the last four years as far as women’s safety in the national capital is concerned. “We feel nothing has changed. The governments have changed. It has been four years, but the situation remains the same. For the last four years, we have been running from pillar-to-post to get justice. But no action has been taken against the accused,” said a distraught Asha Devi.