Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum administration, which witnessed the gangrape of a software engineer employed with a Bangalore-based IT firm, will take up an awareness programme with village heads to avoid recurrence of such incidents.

Though all the seven persons, including two minors, involved in the incident were arrested on Sunday and have confessed to their crime, the administration will hold a meeting with village manki-mundas (traditional village heads of tribals) soon after

Diwali.

“Our administration officials will be meeting the manki-mundas soon after the festivity to avoid recurrence of such incidents.

“We would seek their cooperation to mobilise village level information networks

to let local police know immediately if some miscreants loiter around deserted areas and commit such immoral acts,” said West Singhbhum deputy commissioner Ananya Mittal.

West Singhbhum SP Ashutosh Shekhar also stressed on the need of public cooperation to prevent such incidents.

“We have police patrolling teams in almost all the police stations, but despite this it is impossible to stop such incidents as it is not possible to depute a static police team at all points. In such a situation it is the local villagers’ support that is crucial to prevent crimes.

“In fact, the local villagers played an important role in the arresting of the culprits,” said Shekhar.

Significantly, the arrests of the culprits who were involved in the gangrape incident on Thursday night was made after interrogating some locals who frequent the secluded spot near the old aerodrome in Chaibasa where the incident happened.

“The village tribal leaders helped the police in identifying the youths who used to frequent that area which helped us in cracking the case,” admitted a senior police official of the district.

The 26-year-old woman, though associated with a Bangalore-based IT firm, is at present working from home and stays with parents in Chaibasa and was out with her boyfriend on a two-wheeler on Thursday evening when the incident happened near a deserted stretch at the Old Chaibasa Aerodrome area, some six km from the district headquarter.

A group of people stopped the couple, beat them up and allegedly raped the woman after taking her to a nearby secluded spot, police said.

The arrests were made by the Special Investigation Team. The woman’s wallet and mobile phones were recovered from those arrested.

The woman has identified the seven culprits and the police also recovered the clothes.

Significantly, the woman had in the complaint lodged on Friday claimed that nearly 10 youths had raped her.

However, during the investigation it was found that seven were involved which was accepted by the victim too.