India police charge 5 men in Mumbai gangrape case

Indian police on Thursday charged five men for gangraping a 22-year-old photo-journalist in Mumbai last month, a senior police official said. "Four adult accused have been charged with five offences, including gangrape and destruction of evidence. A fifth suspect in the case, being a minor at the time of the incident, has been charged separately in a juvenile court," the official said, on condition of anonymity. The chargesheet, running up to 600 pages, contains the victim's statement, testimonies of more than 80 witnesses and forensic evidence acquired from the crime scene, the official added. The photo-journalist was allegedly gangraped by the five men at Shakti Mills, an abandoned textile mill in Mumbai, where she had gone on an official assignment, along with one of her male colleagues, on August 22. All the accused were arrested by the Mumbai Police's elite crime branch within 72 hours. They face life in prison if convicted while the minor suspect faces a maximum of three years in a reforms facility. The case sparked public outrage in Mumbai over the rising incidents of sexual violence on women in India, just like the horrific and fatal gangrape of a 23-year-old medical student by six men on a moving bus in the national capital triggered protests. Last week, a fast-track court sentenced four men to death for the crime. The main accused, Ram Singh, committed suicide in his prison cell during the trial while another convict, being a juvenile, was sent to undergo three years in a reforms facility.