A bus parked near Timarpur Police station, as 16-year-old girl was allegedly gang raped inside a moving sleeper bus after she boarded the vehicle seeking help while stranded in heavy rain. Police have seized the bus for forensic examination.
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
A 16-year-old girl from Uttar Pradesh was allegedly gang raped by a bus driver and conductor inside a moving sleeper bus after they offered her a lift amid heavy rain in the Delhi-NCR region, police said on Monday (August 31, 2026).The incident reportedly happened at around 11.30 p.m. on August 4 during the bus’s 60-kilometre journey from Pari Chowk in Greater Noida to Sector 63 in Noida and then towards the Outer Ring Road, where the girl was abandoned. The accused, driver Kuldeep and conductor Sandeep (29), have been arrested, while the bus has been seized and sent for forensic examination.Speaking to The Hindu, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Niharika Bhatt said the girl, a Class 11 student , had left her home to visit her cousin in Noida. Amid heavy rain and darkness, she accidentally reached Pari Chowk in Greater Noida.An empty sleeper bus passing through the area stopped after she signalled to the driver. The driver and conductor told her they were headed towards Noida Sector 63 and offered to drop her there, the official said.Shortly after the bus began moving, the conductor made obscene gestures towards the girl. The two accused then allegedly raped her inside the bus and threatened to kill her if she resisted, according to her statement to the police.The girl told police that the bus reached Sector 63 but the driver continued towards Delhi, eventually taking her to the Ring Road near the Kashmere Gate ISBT. Ms. Bhatt said the accused wanted to abandon her farther away from the place where the crime had occurred.The accused then dropped her on Ring Road near the Kashmere Gate ISBT and fled. The girl took an auto-rickshaw to Kashmere Gate police station and reported the incident, the DCP said.Police immediately formed teams to trace the bus and, with the help of the girl, identified the vehicle. The two accused were subsequently traced to a bus parking lot in Timarpur in north Delhi and arrested. The seized bus has been sent for forensic examination.Ms. Bhatt said the bus had earlier developed a mechanical fault and was taken to a workshop in Surajpur, Greater Noida, for repairs. After the repairs were completed, Kuldeep and Sandeep were driving the empty bus back to Timarpur when they encountered the girl at Pari Chowk.The sleeper bus had curtains around its berths, which police said meant that people outside could not see what was happening inside the vehicle. Police said Sandeep has no previous criminal record. The police are now preparing to file a chargesheet in the case.The incident triggered a political row, with the Congress targeting the BJP governments in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh over women’s safety. In a post on X, the party said the incident had “shaken the nation”.“The savagery continued for nearly 50 km in the moving bus, but the police from two states turned a deaf ear and slept on,” the party said.The party alleged that there was no adequate patrolling or checking and said the incident exposed what it described as “hollow claims” about women’s safety under the BJP governments.AAP leader Saurabh Bharadwaj also criticised Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta over the government’s handling of cases involving children. In a video message, he described her approach towards cases of child rape as “insensitive” and “disgusting” and alleged that Delhi was becoming a “capital of child rape”, citing other recent cases involving children. Published - August 31, 2026 04:19 pm IST
