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. Dehradun’s Senior Superintendent of Police, Ajay Singh, stated that two other bus drivers and a cashier employed at the Dehradun ISBT were also taken into custody.
The incident occurred on August 12, but authorities were only notified on Saturday. According to the police, the Dehradun Child Welfare Committee (CWC) was alerted about a teenage girl who was found sitting alone late at night on a bench at the Dehradun ISBT on August 12.
The girl was taken to Bal Niketan, a government-run girls’ home, where she disclosed the alleged rape during a counseling session. Following this, a First Information Report (FIR) was lodged at the Patel Nagar police station under Section 70 (2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, based on a complaint filed by a CWC member. The police then swiftly identified the bus involved by reviewing CCTV footage and arrested the five suspects.
The accused were 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 resident of Dehradun; and Ravi Kumar (34), a resident of Nawabganj in Farrukhabad district, Uttar Pradesh.
Dharmendra Kumar was the bus driver involved in the incident, while Devendra served as the conductor. Ravi Kumar and Rajpal were drivers of other buses, and Sonkar was a cashier at the Uttarakhand Roadways bus stand.
Initially, the girl informed the police that she was an orphan from Punjab, but later, during questioning, she revealed details about her family and disclosed that she was from Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh. She explained that she had traveled to Delhi before boarding a bus to Dehradun, where the alleged rape occurred.
Superintendent of Police Ajay Singh stated that one of the accused, Devendra, admitted to meeting the girl at the Kashmiri Gate ISBT in Delhi. The girl had asked him for directions to Punjab, and Devendra suggested she take a bus to Dehradun and then transfer to another bus toward Punjab. However, after reaching Dehradun and after all passengers had disembarked, Devendra and the driver, Dharmendra, allegedly raped her. Later, two other drivers, Ravi and Rajpal, who had learned about the incident, also entered the bus and allegedly raped the teenager.
Devendra reportedly informed the cashier, Rajesh Kumar Sonkar, about the incident while depositing money, after which Sonkar also allegedly raped the girl on the bus.