Night of shame continues…..

There was a dense fog that night, which afforded poor visibility. Against the advice of the SP, Aurangabad, not to drive in such dense fog, Inspector Rituraj left for Varanasi with the accused and his team. On the request of the inspector, the SP provided a police escort to accompany the Delhi Police team to the Bihar–UP border. The visibility on the road was barely seven to eight feet. The driver stuck to the centre of the road to keep track of where they were going and inched towards Varanasi—176 kilometres away—undeterred.

The police party along with Akshay reached their destination in the early hours of 22 December and took the first flight to Delhi at 9.15 a.m. They reached Delhi airport at noon, and from there Akshay was taken directly to the court and his police custody remand taken.

We now had the fifth accused in our custody. The Union home secretary, R.K. Singh, was pleased with the progress in the investigation and decided to call a press conference in the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The media continued to be hostile. The fact that the Union home secretary was addressing the press conference and speaking well of the Delhi Police was unacceptable to them. At the end of the conference, I heard snide comments from the press reporters. Their ire was also directed at the Union home secretary, who had spoken well of the police, and they alluded sarcastically to the fact that since both he and I were from the same state, the home secretary was taking a soft stance towards the police. Not a single reporter was ready to acknowledge the good work done by the police or the weight of my heavy stare.

Raju—the juvenile in conflict with the law—was the only accused left to be arrested. He was the one who had hailed Nirbhaya and Awindra at the Munirka bus stand to board the bus.

To be continued……