Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Four teenagers who al­leged­ly gang- raped a 14-year-girl as she walked home from school and a 25-year-old maxi dri­ver who al­leged­ly raped a Moru­ga stu­dent, were among 41 peo­ple ar­rest­ed dur­ing an ex­er­cise in the South­ern Di­vi­sion over the week­end. The ex­er­cise was or­gan­ised by Se­nior Supt De­o­dath Du­lalchan and ex­e­cut­ed by ASP Zamsheed Ali, In­sp Par­sons, Sgt Nob­bie and Sgt Mo­han. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said the first in­ci­dent oc­curred around 2.45 pm on Thurs­day. The four teenagers al­leged­ly car­ried the teenag­er to a house at Pi­cous Av­enue, St Mar­garet's, and took turns rap­ing her.

She lat­er made a re­port at the St Mar­garet's Po­lice Sta­tion, af­ter which of­fi­cers be­gan in­quiries. All four sus­pects, aged 15, 16, 17 and 18, were tak­en to the St Mar­garet's Po­lice Sta­tion where they were charged. In the sec­ond rape case, po­lice ar­rest­ed a 25-year-old man for al­leged­ly rap­ing a 15-year-old Moru­ga stu­dent in the back seat of his pan­el van. Po­lice said the ac­cused was ac­cus­tomed to trans­port­ing stu­dents in his van. It is al­leged that around 4 pm on Fri­day, the man picked up the teenag­er from school and drove to L'Anse Mi­tan, Moru­ga, where he sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed her.

The ac­cused was ar­rest­ed and tak­en to the Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion where he was charged. Mean­while, in the same ex­er­cise, sev­en peo­ple, be­tween the ages of 18 and 35, were ar­rest­ed for pos­ses­sion of nar­cotics. Four oth­ers were charged for breach­ing the cur­few, 15 were held on war­rants, eight were charged for dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol, while two oth­ers were charged for house break­ing and lar­ce­ny. All of the ac­cused are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore San Fer­nan­do and Princes Town mag­is­trates to­day.