Three more persons, including the main accused in the Bulandshahr gangrape case, have been arrested, taking the total number of those nabbed in connection with the incident to six, a police official said on Monday.
Declining to give details, he said that all the three accused were picked up by the police during raids.
Among them was the main accused Salim Bawariya, he said, but did not disclose the place from where the arrests were made.
These arrests are in addition to three persons picked up earlier.
Director General of Uttar Pradesh Police Javeed Ahmed had earlier said, "The names of other accused are almost clear and efforts are on to arrest them."
A group of dacoits had brutally raped the woman and her 13-year-old daughter at gunpoint after dragging them out of a car in Bulandshahr on NH-91 when they were travelling with their family from Noida to Shahjahanpur on July 29.
Later, another police official said the three accused were arrested from Meerut, after a week-long chase.
Uttar Pradesh Police had earlier arrested--Naresh (25), Bablu (22) and Rais (28)--and detained a dozen others after launching a massive hunt for the bandits suspected to be behind the crime.
Earlier, the Allahabad high court had sought to know from the Uttar Pradesh government on why the investigation in the gangrape case be not handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Directing the state government to file its reply by August 10, a division bench of Chief Justice D B Bhosale and Justice Yashwant Varma also sought a report on status of probe in the case, including the "criminal antecedents, social background and political affiliations, if any", of the accused persons.
The court has taken suo motu cognisance of the July 29 incident when a group of criminals waylaid a car, carrying six members of a Noida-based family on their way to Shahjahanpur in western Uttar Pradesh, and sexually assaulted a minor girl and her mother after dragging them out of the vehicle.
The Lucknow bench of the high court also sought within a week an appropriate reply from the Uttar Pradesh government on a PIL seeking a direction for a CBI probe into the case.
A division bench of justices Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Vijay Laxmi passed the order on the PIL filed by NGO We the People through its general secretary Prince Lenin.
The court has listed the matter for further hearing on August 22.
The court had asked the petitioner to file details of the alleged irregularities in the case.
The petitioner filed a supplementary affidavit on Monday entailing therein the alleged lapses in the investigation and the factors which had led to the filing of the petition showing lack of confidence in the probe process.
The incident had sent shock waves across the country, rocked Parliament and led to widespread criticism of the law-and-order situation in Uttar Pradesh.
Apparently rattled by the outcry, senior minister in the Samajwadi Party government Azam Khan had remarked that he suspected a "political conspiracy" behind the incident, evoking widespread condemnation.
The Allahabad bench also sought to know from the state government whether it had any policy to ensure proper policing of the highways passing through the state and ensure safety and security of those who used these roads.
"When a person pays toll tax on a highway, he does not do so merely for using the road. After collecting the toll tax, the state becomes duty-bound to ensure safety and security of the payers," it remarked.
The court also added "We are not going to dispose of this petition at an early stage. We are going to monitor the investigation in the case. The investigators better take note and ensure that the perpetrators of the crime are brought to justice".
