It was an unsuspecting gesture on part of the Kotkhai girl to accept lift from Raju @ Rajinder Singh (32), a pickup driver and the main accused in Shimla gang-rape case as she was offered lift by him on several occasions in the past.

In fact, she had accepted lift twice in the past on her way back as the school children of the area had to walk back for around 13 km from the only senior secondary school in the area. But little she knew that the ride would end up in horrific incident, leading to brutal death.

The driver, Raju used to give lift to the school children on their way back home as there are no transportation facilities available for them, Zahoor H Zaidi, Inspector General of Police, Southern Range and the head of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that was constituted to probe the case, told mediapersons.

The students have to walk back for around 13 km from the only senior secondary school in the area.

“As soon as the Raju along with four other associates identified as Subhash Singh Bisht (42), Suraj Singh (29), Lokjan alias Chhotu (19) and Deepak (38) reached a secluded location, they stopped the vehicle on the pretext of leaving some equipment at a farmers’ place,” Zaidi said, adding all of them were heavily drunk at the time of incident.

After this, they dragged the victim into the jungle and gangraped her there.

The girl was gangraped and sodomised by the accused. The girl died due to suffocation as her face was smothered by the accused to muffle her cries for help but the accused didn’t stop here and raped her even after she had died.

The accused later dumped her body in a trench, few metres away from the actual crime scene.

Zaidi said the arrests in the case were made on the basis of disclosure made by Ashish Chauhan, who was arrested on the basis of surveillance data, collected by the Police to probe.

Though the Police remain tight-lipped on his role in the entire gang-rape case as to whether he was involved in the rape of the victim or not. “We have arrested the five accused on the basis of information provided by Ashish alias Ashu as he had last seen the girl with Raju,” he said, adding his role in the entire crime is being ascertained.

The Director General of Police (DGP), HP, Somesh Goyal appealed to the people to desist from circulating unverified news and photographs related to the case on social media which made the work of SIT that much more difficult.

“Besides, such posts can attract civil and criminal liability,” he added.

Meanwhile, Shimla Bar association members on Thursday vowed to not defend the accused in the court and submitted a memorandum in this regard.

It is worthwhile to mention here that the Class X girl was found dead under suspicious circumstances in Kotkhai area on 6 July after a passerby noticed her body that was lying in a jungle in nude condition.

Her autopsy report had revealed that she was gangraped and later strangulated to death. There were injury marks over her body and her limbs, leg and arm were broken by the attackers.

The girl had gone to school on 4 July but didn’t return to home in Kotkhai area.