Hangal gang rape case: Three more arrested by K’taka police, number of arrests rises to 14

Haveri, Jan 22 With the arrest of three more persons by the Karnataka police in connection with the Hangal alleged gang rape by moral police vigilantes, the number of arrests made in the case rose to 14, the police said on Monday.

Twenty six-year-old Ismail Hubballi, 27-year-old Riyaz Savikere and 24-year-old Niyaz Dargah were arrested on Sunday. The state government had come under pressure as the Bharatiya Janata Party had launched a series of attacks on the Congress government and charged that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's government is hushing up the victim and the case as well.

The Karnataka BJP unit had staged a massive protest in Haveri led by Leader of the Opposition R. Ashoka and former CM Basavaraj Bommai and demanded that the probe be handed over to a Special Investigation Team (SIT).

The victim of moral policing had released a video on January 11 in which she had said that she was repeatedly raped by vigilantes in Haveri district of Karnataka.

The homemaker was dragged out of a hotel after being seen with a person from another religion and beaten up in Hangal town on January 8.

The victim who belongs to the minority community stated that when she was at the hotel, a gang of five to six men barged inside, questioned her and forcibly took her away on their bikes.

They took her to an isolated place and assaulted her brutally and later all of them raped her. They asked her to get into a car and the driver also raped her.

Her ordeal did not end here. She was taken to two to three other places and gang raped. The accused later took her to the national highway where she boarded a bus.

“I want them to be punished,” she demanded in the video in an appeal to the police.

The victim's husband also appeared before the media and stated that his wife was gang-raped by the vigilantes.

“They kidnapped and inhumanly attacked my wife. She revealed this brutality to a family member. She had not told me,” he stated.

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