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The driver and conductor of a sleeper bus were arrested for allegedly gang-raping a 16-year-old girl from Uttar Pradesh after misleading her into boarding the vehicle in Greater Noida, eventually dropping her off near Kashmere Gate, earlier this month, Delhi Police said on Monday.

The girl told police that she accidentally got off at Pari Chowk after darkness fell and it began raining. (HT)The arrests, however, triggered a jurisdictional dispute, with UP police alleging that Delhi Police did not inform them about the incident despite the alleged sexual assault taking place in the Gautam Buddh Nagar commissionerate area.

According to Delhi Police, the Class 11 student, who lives in Mainpuri, left home on August 3 without informing her parents after being reprimanded by her mother over her studies. She intended to travel to her cousin’s home in Sector 63, Noida, deputy commissioner of police (north) Niharika Bhatt said.

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The girl told police that she accidentally got off at Pari Chowk after darkness fell and it began raining. She then saw a bus approaching and signalled for it to stop, an officer familiar with the investigation said. The conductor allegedly told her that the bus was headed towards Sector 63, following which she boarded it.

Police said there were no other passengers on the bus at the time. According to the police account, shortly after the bus began moving, the conductor allegedly behaved inappropriately towards the girl before he and the driver allegedly sexually assaulted her inside the moving bus. The two men allegedly threatened to kill her when she resisted, police said.

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In total, the bus covered around 47km between Pari Chowk in Greater Noida (from where the victim boarded to bus), to Ring Road near Kashmere Gate Inter-State Bus Terminal, where they dropped off the victim in the early hours of August 4.

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“The larger problem was that the curtains had been drawn and the bus was moving. There was no way of knowing what was going on inside,” an officer said. DCP Bhatt did not comment on how many police checkpoints the bus crossed during its journey.

A Delhi Police team analysed CCTV footage and traced the bus to a parking area in Timarpur, around 15 minutes from Kashmere Gate, where the two accused were arrested within four hours, the police said.

The accused, both in their early 20s and originally from Kanpur, allegedly told investigators that the bus had “developed a mechanical problem” and had been taken to a workshop in Surajpur. After the repairs, they allegedly spotted the girl near Pari Chowk, police said.

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Officials of Greater Noida police, however, said on Monday that the incident had not been reported to them before the Delhi Police publicly disclosed the arrests. In a statement, the force said the alleged incident took place “in the Gautam Buddh Nagar Police Commissionerate area” and that it “was not communicated or reported to the Noida Police by the Delhi Police prior to today”.