Pramod Kumar Singh in the Pioneer: ‘Hafta diary’ helps cops zero in on rape bus

It was the corrupt practice of allowing transporters to illegally run their buses after-hours that helped the police zero in on the vehicle used in Sunday's gangrape, sources say.

A traffic policeman had reportedly recorded the registration number of the bus in a 'hafta' diary - a record of illegally-plying buses for which bribes have been paid for exemption of prosecution. That immunity from police, however, is seen as the sole reason the gangrape was not detected as no cop intercepted it while it circled the area slowly.

The cop identified the bus when the police relayed the description provided by the victims. It finally led the police to zero in on two transporters with Yadav as their surnames. The bus was culled from a list of 370 chartered buses and the owner Dinesh Yadav was picked up by the police from his Noida Sector 62 residence and brought to verify the description of driver Ram Singh and also identify him after his arrest.

The very fact that the bus was plying illegally for hours on Sunday night with impunity suggests the active collusion of traffic police personnel.