16-Year-Old UP Girl Gang-Raped Inside Moving Sleeper Bus After Boarding At Pari Chowk, Evokes Nirbhaya Horror
Sunil Negi / New Delhi, 31 August 2026
In a chilling reminder of the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape, a 16-year-old Class 11 student from Mainpuri district of Uttar Pradesh, who originally hails from Etah, was allegedly gang-raped inside an empty moving sleeper bus after she sought help at Greater Noida’s Pari Chowk on the night of August 4.
According to Delhi Police, the girl had left home without informing her family after being scolded by her mother over studies and was travelling to Noida Sector 63 to meet her cousin.
Amid heavy rain and darkness she mistakenly got off at Pari Chowk and realizing she was stranded, she signalled an empty sleeper bus passing by for help.
The bus, which was returning empty after repairs from a workshop in Surajpur, stopped and its conductor Sandeep and driver Kuldeep told her that they were going towards Noida Sector 63 and agreed to drop her.
The girl boarded the bus believing she would be safe, but police said that soon after the bus started moving towards Delhi, the conductor started making obscene advances which she resisted.
She has alleged in her complaint that both the driver and the conductor then brutally raped her inside the curtained sleeper berth, thrashed her and threatened to kill her and face dire consequences if she reported the matter to police.
The accused then drove the bus for nearly 47 kilometres across NCR and abandoned her late at night on Ring Road near Kashmere Gate ISBT terminal and fled thinking they would not be caught if they dumped her in Delhi.
The terrified teenager approached Kashmere Gate police station with the help of a woman constable, narrated her ordeal and was sent for medical examination.
Based on her statement, Delhi Police registered an FIR under sections of gang-rape, kidnapping, assault and provisions of POCSO Act and arrested both accused, driver Kuldeep and conductor Sandeep, from a parking area in Timarpur the same day.
The UP-registered sleeper bus has been seized and sent for forensic examination where strands of the girl’s hair were recovered and CCTV footage from the entire Pari Chowk to Kashmere Gate route is being examined to establish the sequence. DCP North District Niharika Bhat has confirmed the arrests and said further investigation is underway.
The incident has once again shaken the national capital and brought back painful memories of the December 16, 2012 Nirbhaya case, when a 23-year-old paramedical student was brutally gang-raped and tortured inside a moving off-duty private bus by six men including the driver, beaten along with her male friend and thrown out of the moving vehicle, leading to her death 13 days later.
That case had triggered an unprecedented nationwide outrage with lakhs of people, especially youth and students, pouring onto the streets at India Gate, Jantar Mantar and across the country demanding death penalty for the culprits, leading to the Justice J.S. Verma Committee recommendations and stringent amendments to criminal law against sexual assault.
Similarly, several other cases like the Shakti Mills gang-rape in Mumbai and Unnao and Hathras cases had also seen massive public protests. Police said the present case is being investigated on similar lines and security around private buses and verification of drivers and conductors is being intensified.
