New Delhi, Sept 1:
A 16-year-old Class 11 student from Uttar Pradesh was allegedly gang-raped inside a bus by its driver and conductor before being abandoned at Kashmere Gate in Delhi, police said.
The incident occurred on August 4 but came to light only recently. The two accused — bus driver Kuldeep, 39, and conductor Sandeep, 26, both from Kanpur — have been arrested.
The teenager, a resident of Mainpuri district, had left home after being scolded by her mother and was travelling to Noida to meet her cousin.
According to police, she mistakenly got down at Pari Chowk around 9 pm. It was raining heavily and she realised that she was still around 25 km from her cousin’s residence.
While looking for transport, she was approached by a bus. The conductor allegedly told her that the vehicle was heading towards Noida Sector 63 and offered to drop her there.
Trusting him, the girl boarded the bus.
Investigators later found that the bus was not operating as a regular passenger service that night. It had been taken to a workshop in Surajpur, Greater Noida, for repairs following a technical problem.
Police said the two accused had collected the vehicle from the workshop around 5 pm and began travelling around 9 pm.
The bus travelled from Surajpur through Pari Chowk, the Advant area and Noida Sector 93 before heading towards Delhi and eventually Kashmere Gate.
Police allege that the conductor sexually assaulted the teenager, while the driver was complicit. The accused allegedly threatened to kill her if she resisted.
The girl was eventually abandoned at Kashmere Gate. She managed to take an autorickshaw to a police station, where the incident was reported. A subsequent medical examination confirmed rape.
Police have collected CCTV footage from locations along the route and are reconstructing the bus’s movements.
The vehicle travelled nearly 43 km before the girl was abandoned. Investigators are examining how the bus travelled through areas with CCTV cameras, police posts and barricades without being intercepted.
The travel company has told police that the bus was undergoing renovation and that its CCTV cameras were not operational at the time.
The sleeper berths inside the vehicle had curtains, which investigators suspect may have helped conceal the alleged crime.
Forensic teams recovered strands of the girl’s hair from inside the bus. The vehicle was seized and remains part of the investigation.
Police are also checking the backgrounds of the two accused and examining whether they had any previous criminal records.
The case has drawn comparisons with the 2012 Nirbhaya case, in which a woman was brutally assaulted inside a moving bus in Delhi.
Police are continuing to examine CCTV footage, forensic evidence and other material to establish the full sequence of events and determine whether anyone else was involved