NEW DELHI: A Pune court on Friday remanded Dattatray Ramdas Gade, the accused in the Pune bus rape case, to 12-day police custody till March 12. Advocate Sajid Shah, representing Gade, told the court that the incident occurred “with consent.” Another of of his defence team said “she could have shouted and sought help” and “nothing was done forcefully.”
“The accused has been sent to police custody till March 12. In defence of the accused, we have told the court that whatever happened, it happened following a consent between the two,” advocate Sajid Shah told news agency PTI.
“The investigating officer said that he is a habitual offender but he was not convicted in any of the previous cases. It was 5.45 am the morning (the time of the alleged incident); she could have shouted and sought help. Nothing was done forcefully,” defence lawyer advocate Wajid Khan told ANI.
Gade, who had been on the run since early Tuesday morning, was apprehended from his village Gunat, Shirur Taluka, around 1.30 a,. According to officials, he was hiding in a sugarcane field but emerged when officers closed in to arrest him.
A 26-year-old preoperative counselor working at a city hospital was allegedly raped by Gade who already has a police record inside a Shivshahi bus parked overnight at the MSRTC Swargate terminus around 5.30am on Tuesday.
The Swargate bus terminus, one of Pune’s largest state transport hubs, is located directly opposite the Swargate police station. It sees a daily footfall of around 60,000 passengers and handles 600 bus movements, connecting Mumbai, Solapur, Ahilyanagar, Kolhapur, Sangli, and Satara, as well as destinations in Karnataka and Goa.
The survivor, originally from Phaltan in Satara district, resides in Aundh. She works as a preoperative counselor at a city hospital, where she educates patients about their surgeries, including risks, benefits, and post-operative care, to help them manage anxiety. She reported the incident to the police around 9.30 am on Tuesday and was referred for a medical examination.
Following an initial inquiry, an FIR was registered later that evening, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone II) Smartana Patil told TOI on Wednesday.