The magistrate court on Monday granted the police Salim Ansari’s custody till September 5, 2013, which is longest when compared to others accused involved in the gangrape of the young photojournalist. The police had appealed for a long custody for all accused to carry out a thorough investigation, however, for the four other accused they were granted custody only till August 30.

Twenty-seven-year-old Ansari gave Mumbai crime branch officials a hard time and he was arrested from Bharat Nagar in Delhi on Sunday morning. He was produced before magistrate Judge Uday Padwad at around 12.30 pm with his face covered. Ansari said “no” after the judge asked him whether he had complaints against the police.
The police has recovered a Nokia S2 cellphone from Ansari. When asked whether the same phone was used to click pictures crime branch official refused to divulge information, stating it would hamper investigations. Police commissioner Satyapal Singh said no photo was found in the mobile phone, suggesting it might have been deleted but added that they would try to retrieve it. “One of the accused, Mohammed Kasim, has also sold the mobile phone to someone else, which too we will trace soon,” Mr Singh added. He also said the police have identified around 270 such deserted places in the city which are likely to harbour criminals.
A senior crime branch officer said that there are forensic and computerised technologies to retrieve lost data which they will use to recover the photo. “Another accused Mohammed Saleem Ansari (27) said he took a photo of the victim’s face with his mobile which too we haven’t found in the phone. This will also be retrieved. Salim has also admitted in the initial questioning that the gang has raped other girls, mostly ragpickers, on four to five different occasions,” the officer said.
The officer added that the accused decided to project Kasim Bangali as their “gang leader” when they told the two victims that they would have to come to meet their “boss.” “The boss here was Bangali. When the victims first ran into the accused, they asked them for directions, which they gave following which the two shot photographs for around 15 minutes. It was after this that two of the accused took objection to the photography,” explained the officer.
The police has now sent the five for a “potency test” at JJ Hospital to ascertain that none of them suffer from impotency.
“This is often argued by the defence claiming that the rape accused could not have committed the crime as they are impotent. Currently, we have evidence in the form of call data records and mobile location proving the physical presence of the accused at the crime spot. We have also taken mud samples from the victim’s clothes and dupatta and fingerprints from the broken beer bottles. This proof is however only linking the accused to the scene of crime and not the act of rape. For that, we are waiting for forensic results of the girl’s vaginal swabs, semen on her and the accused clothes and other medical tests,” another crime branch source said. The following samples have been sent to the forensic laboratory at Kalina.