A 28-year-old woman, who was hunting for an accommodation along with her husband, was allegedly raped at the house of their acquaintance by eight persons in suburban Jogeshwari in Mumbai, police said on Tuesday.
Police have arrested all the eight men, most of them residents of a nearby slum colony, allegedly involved in the crime on Monday night.
The incident occurred at Amboli on Monday night when the victim and her husband were searching for an accommodation at Shamnagar slum with the help of a woman who was known to them.
Since it got late in the night, the couple chose to stay at the woman's house.
According to a senior police official, the accused barged into the house where the couple had put up and allegedly took turns to rape the woman before moving away her husband.
"The matter came to us at around 2:30am. We quickly swung into action and arrested seven youths in morning. They were produced in court which remanded them in police custody until November 4. Another accused was arrested later in the day. He will be produced in court tomorrow," he said.
All the accused have been booked under sections 376 D (gang rape), 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint), 452 (house-trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), of IPC with Amboli police station.
They were identified as Nastain Zafar Ali Shaikh alias Babu (19), Nagesh Dhangar alias 'Kateri' (21), Imran Muhammad Hussain Shaikh (23), Muhammad Ghulam Hussain Khan (27), Rakesh Khaire (21), Zaheer Sharif Khan (23), Ejaz Ahmed Shaikh (21), and Pradeep Ghagat (23).
The woman was admitted to a hospital and is stated to be stable, police said.
Image: The rape accused being taken into police custody. Photograph: Sahil Salvi
