Pune: The district rural police on Saturday arrested two people and claimed to have solved the rape-cum-robbery at Swami Chincholi village near Bhigwan on the Pune-Solapur highway, about 100km from the city, around 4.15am on June 30. Superintendent of police, Pune Rural, Sandeep Singh Gill said, “We arrested Amir Salim Pathan (30) of Akluj in Solapur district and Vikas Namdev Satpute (28) of Bhigwan after studying the mobile network location of the area and the highway section. The duo’s location was the crime scene. We are yet to recover the robbed jewellery from them. Pathan has some crime records with the Pune city police.” The Pune Rural police were searching for the two motorcycle-borne men, who robbed gold jewellery from women travelling in a van at Swami Chincholi village. One of them allegedly abducted a minor girl (17) from the van and sexually assaulted her. While executing the robbery, the duo threw chilli masala in the eyes of the van occupants.A case of robbery, rape, abduction and criminal intimidation was registered with the Daund police station. The minor girl (17) lodged the complaint of rape against the duo. According to the police, seven members of two families — two senior citizens, a woman, two 17-year-old girls and two 17-year-old boys — were in the van. They were heading from their home in Junnar taluka to Pandharpur. “The families wanted to visit a temple town in Solapur to offer prayers,” the police said.The driver of the van felt drowsy and halted the van in front of a roadside tea stall around 4.15am on Monday. The driver alighted from the van to have a cup of tea, keeping its door open, the police said. All van passengers were drowsy, too. According to the police, two motorcycle-borne men, heading towards Indapur, stopped their motorcycle close to the van. The duo, carrying a billhook, issued threats of dire consequences to the van occupants and robbed the women’s gold jewellery weighing 25 grams.The police said the motorcycle riders then left the spot only to return within a couple of minutes. They again issued threats to the family members and pulled one of the 17-year-old girls out of the van. They drove away with her and returned to the van after 15 minutes. One of the accused attempted to rape her in these 15 minutes, the police said.
