PUNE: Police nabbed Swargate rape suspect Dattatray Gade (37) from the sugar cane fields at his native village Gunat, 70km from the city in Shirur taluka off the highway to Ahmednagar, around 1.30am on Friday and said he had made three attempts to end his life by hanging himself while in hiding. The rope he used snapped each time, police said.
“We found ligature marks on Gade’s neck when our team detained him,” Pune police commissioner Amitesh Kumar said on Friday. “When asked about the marks, Gade told our investigators that he tried to hang himself late on Thursday night from a tree near the sugar cane field where he was hiding,” the police chief said.
Later in the day, a Swargate police team produced Gade before the court of judicial magistrate first class T S Gaigole, and sought Gade’s custodial remand for 14 days on the grounds of investigating the rape case. Gade’s lawyers, Wajid Khan Bidkar and Ajinkya Mahadik, opposed the remand by submitting that there was no rape and it was a case of consensual relationship after their client and the survivor had a chat at the bus terminus. The court ordered Gade’s custodial remand till March 12.
“During initial questioning, Gade said he ate sugar cane and tomatoes for two days but did not get water to the point where his thirst prompted him to step out of the field,” Kumar said.
Gade, a criminal on police records with six previous cases of theft, robbery and phone-snatching attempt to his name, is accused of raping a 26-year-old health counsellor with a Pune hospital around 5.30am on Tuesday in a Shivshahi bus parked at the Swargate terminus.
Cops to recover suspect’s cellphone, clothes & quiz him about past crimes
The state prosecution on Friday told a magisterial court that the police needed Swargate rape suspect Dattatray Gade’s custodial remand to recover his cellphone to establish his movements after the alleged crime and to ascertain if he was helped by any person in evading arrest for two days.
A Swargate police team produced Gade before the court of judicial magistrate first class T S Gaigole, and sought his custodial remand for 14 days on the grounds of investigating the rape case. The court ordered his custodial remand till March 12. Public prosecutor Bhagyashree Dagle-Sancheti told court that the police also needed to recover Gade’s clothes and ascertain the likelihood of his involvement in such crimes in the past.
“Police are yet to establish how Gade reached Gunat village and who all helped him and provided him shelter. Police also want to track down his accomplices,” she added.
Gade’s lawyers Wajid Khan Bidkar and Ajinkya Mahadik opposed the remand plea and submitted before the court that their client and the woman (survivor) had a consensual relationship in the bus after an initial conversation at the Swargate bus terminus.
The defence said that the case is fabricated and CCTV footage shows that the woman entered the bus on her own and was not forced inside the vehicle. “It is a case of consensual relationship and as per Supreme Court rulings, consensual relations do not qualify as rape,” the defence argued.
Earlier, investigating officer and senior inspector Yuvraj Nandre told the court that Gade grabbed the survivor, a health counsellor, by her neck after she got onto the empty parked bus and raped her.
Narrating the events, Nandre told the court that the survivor was waiting at the terminus for a bus to Phaltan in Satara district when Gade approached her and struck up a conversation with her. He addressed her as ‘tai’ (sister) to win her confidence and mislead her into getting into the stationary Shivshahi bus.
Nandre told the court that Gade was named in six cases of theft and robberies on previous occasions. Five of his victims in these cases were women. Earlier in the evening, the Pune police cordoned off all the roads leading to the Shivajinagar court premises where Gade was produced to avert any untoward incident.
