Modasa death: Three accused surrender, arrested

Ahmedabad/Palanpur: Three persons named by the family members of the 19-year-old Dalit girl, who was found hanging in Sayra village near Modasa on January 5, were formally arrested after they surrendered before Modasa police on Saturday.
Police have also also seized the i20 car of the accused which cops believ had been used to allegedly kidnap the girl.
The trio — Bimal Bharwad, Darshan Bharwad and Jigar Parmar — arrested on Saturday, were among the four named by the girl’s family in the police complaint. They had accused the four of abduction, rape and murder.
“One of the accused, Satish Bharwad, is still absconding and we are searching for him,” said deputy superintendent of police, Aravalli, SS Gadhvi.
The development followed after cops recorded the statement of the deceased’s sister. She told the police that she had seen Bimal kidnapping her sister in the car from near Modasa bus stand on January 1. She further told the cops that when she confronted Bimal, he allegedly threatened to kill her and her family.
This is for the first time after the incident that the statements of the family members were recorded at Modasa rural police station.
The death of the girl had sparked a massive outrage among the Dalit community that have been protesting demanding immediate arrest of the accused since January 5.
Aravalli SP Mayur Patil said that they will be interrogating the accused to get details of their alleged crimes.
Earlier, the postmortem had ruled out gangrape and murder and prima facie it looked like the girl committed suicide. However, the cops are awaiting forensic report of the vaginal swab and blood examination to ascertain sexual assault.
A rally was also held by Dalit community members in Surendranagar on Friday, demanding handing over the probe to the state CID crime.