The 28-year-old software engineer, who along with the girl was allegedly brutally assaulted by the six offenders with an iron rod and was later thrown out of the moving bus, appeared before Metropolitan Magistrate Prashant Sharma to give his eyewitness account of the incident.
The statement of the youth, who is also the complainant in the case, was recorded by the magistrate in his chamber and went on for over three hours. The documents and the file containing his statement was later kept in a sealed envelope.
The victim's friend appeared before the court on its summons to him on Delhi Police's plea for its direction for recording of his statement under section 164 (recording of confession and statement) of the CrPC, as he was the eyewitness and also the victim of the alleged incident.
The statement recorded by a magistrate under section 164 of CrPC bind the accused/witness against taking any u-turn by him during trial and any such act makes him liable to be prosecuted on charges of perjury.
Both the victim and her friend, who had boarded the chartered bus with tinted-glass windows at Munirka in South Delhi around 9.45 PM on Sunday night, were assaulted with an iron rod by the men as the two objected to their misbehaviour with them, the police had said.
The assailants later had dumped them on road side near Mahipalpur flyover near Palam in South West Delhi after gangraping the girl and beating up her male friend, the police had said.
So far the police has arrested four accused, out of which three are in police custody till December 23 and the fourth one has been remanded in 14-days' judicial custody to Tihar jail for Test Identification Parade.
The police has also claimed to have arrested the fifth accused from Bihar while the sixth one is still on run.
