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Third arrest in India gang-rape case
Agence France Presse - August 25, 2013
Five men are alleged to have raped the woman, in her early 20s, in the centre of the Indian financial hub where she was on a magazine assignment with a male colleague on Thursday evening.
The attack brought back memories of the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi in December that sparked nationwide protests.
Officers arrested the first suspect on Friday and a second arrest was made overnight, police spokesman Satyanarayan Choudhary told AFP on Saturday. Later in the day, police said they had arrested a third suspect after being told his whereabouts by one of the other accused.
"The probe is heading in the right direction and the other accused will be arrested soon," Mumbai police commissioner Satyapal Singh told reporters.
"The police have all the evidence against the accused and a comprehensive charge sheet will be filed against them." Earlier on Saturday, one of the suspects was remanded in custody after appearing in court. His grandmother told media he was only 16 and should be tried as a minor. Police initially said he was in 20s.
The young woman, reportedly an intern, was taken for treatment at Mumbai's Jaslok Hospital, where staff said she was in stable condition with both internal and external injuries.
"The patient's condition is much better today. However, we are monitoring her health from all aspects of care," Dr Tarang Gianchandani, director medical services at Jaslok Hospital, said in a statement.
The attack, which dismayed a city seen as far safer for women than the capital, sparked outrage on social media sites, uproar in the Indian parliament and protests in Mumbai and elsewhere.
Sonia Gandhi, president of India's ruling Congress party, added her voice, saying she was "saddened and pained". "It is a heinous crime," she told reporters.
A front-page editorial in the Mumbai Mirror said the latest attack "only reaffirms Mumbai's rapidly declining safety record and its decaying moral core".
The incident comes eight months after a 23-year-old woman was fatally gang-raped by five men in a moving bus in New Delhi.
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