Shakti Mills Case: Photojournalist’s Gang Rape Shook Mumbai Months After Delhi’s ‘Nirbhaya’
The Mumbai Police are credited for taking quick action in the crime, nabbing the accused within days – a factor that is believed to have helped another of their assaults come to light.
Most Shocking Crimes: An abandoned mill compound. Two brutal assaults. And lingering shock. This week, ABP Live's Most Shocking Crimes series revisits the infamous Mumbai Shakti Mills gang-rape case. The crime took place in August 2013, and further distressed a nation already reeling under the shock of the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case that had taken place months before.
At the centre of this crime was a 22-year-old photojournalist who had gone inside Mumbai’s deserted Shakti Mills Compound for a photo shoot along with a male colleague. The duo encountered five men who reportedly identified themselves as police personnel to scare them off, before attacking the duo.
The accused – including a juvenile – tied up the colleague, and raped the woman in turns. While the two victims managed to escape, the brutality of the crime made it the subject of headlines for months afterwards, not least because the crime had taken place in a city generally considered safer for women.
The Mumbai Police are credited for taking quick action in the crime, nabbing the accused within days – a factor that is believed to have helped another of their assaults come to light.
Crime Unfolds
It was 6 pm on August 22, 2013, when the photojournalist and her colleague arrived at Shakti Mills. On the overgrown premises, they ran into a group of men who forbade them from clicking photos, claiming to be police personnel, according to an Amar Ujala report. The photojournalist and her colleague were asked to seek permission to click photos.
The two were then taken deeper into the compound, where the assault took place. Two hours later, both of them somehow escaped. According to an Indian Express report, the victim was admitted to the city’s Jaslok hospital. Following their arrival at the hospital, the doctors informed police.
Cops Spring Into Action
A case was registered at Mumbai’s N.M. Joshi Marg police station based on the statement of the survivor, the Indian Express report stated.
A massive search operation ensued, with several teams formed for the manhunt. All the accused were detained in four days. The first accused nabbed was the minor, who was caught with the help of a teenage friend of his.
According to the Indian Express report, the friend identified the boy’s sketch, drawn from the description given by the victim’s colleague.
The minor boy provided the police names and addresses of his four adult accomplices, which led to their arrest.
The minor accused used to stay in the same area as the other convicts, the Indian Express reported.
The adult accused were identified as: Vijay Mohan Jadhav (18) and Siraj Rehmat Khan (24), Mohammad Kasim Shaikh alias Bangali (20) and Mohammed Salim Ansari (27).
Indian law forbids juvenile suspects from being publicly identified.
Case Tried In Fast-Track Court
Maharashtra’s then Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said the trial in the case would be fast-tracked. Chavan said “stringent action will be taken against the culprits”, as quoted by news agency Press Trust of India (PTI).
The chief minister said he had urged noted criminal lawyer Ujjwal Nikam, who represented the government in the Mumbai attacks case, to be the prosecutor in the gang rape case.
Another Crime Involving 3 Of The Accused Surfaces
A few days after the case came to light, a telephone operator working at a call centre came forward with allegations that she was raped by some of the same accused at the abandoned compound.
The woman told the police that the assault on her took place on July 31, 2013, as reported by Amar Ujala.
600-Page Charge Sheet Against The Accused
Mumbai Police filed a chargesheet against the five accused within a month of the incident.
“A 600-page charge sheet was filed against four accused… before a metropolitan magistrate’s court, while the same copy was also moved before a juvenile justice court as the fifth one is a minor,” PTI quoted the then Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Himanshu Roy as saying.
The accused were charged with sections 506 (2) (criminal intimidation), 376(d) (gang rape), 377 (unnatural offence), 342 (wrongful confinement), 341 (wrongful restraint), 201 (destruction of evidence), 120(b) (criminal conspiracy), and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code, Roy added.
According to PTI, the charge sheet comprised statements of 86 witnesses, forensic evidence from the spot, DNA analysis reports and phone call records.
Case Reaches Court
On March 20, 2014, a sessions judge first held the accused common to both crimes as guilty of gang rape. Later the same month, the accused in the case were given the death sentence.
The case marked the first time someone were given capital punishment under Section 376E (for repeat offenders of rape) of the IPC. The section was added in the books following the Nirbhaya case.
A death sentence given by a trial court needs to first be confirmed by the high court.
Bombay HC Commutes Death Sentence
To appeal against the death sentence, the accused knocked on the Bombay High Court’s door. In 2021, the Bombay High Court upheld the conviction but commuted it to a life sentence.
According to a report in The Times of India, a bench of justices S.S. Jadhav and P.K. Chavan held that the convicts “don’t deserve to assimilate in society”.
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