NEW DELHI: In a new low for a city already notorious as India's rape capital, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was left battling for her life after being brutally beaten up and raped by at least five drunken men in a private bus which was audaciously driven around south Delhi localities on Sunday night even as the crime was being committed inside.

The unconscious victim and her male friend, who too was badly beaten, were stripped and thrown off near the

Mahipalpur

flyover on NH-8 after being assaulted for almost an hour. They were picked up around 9.15pm, a time when many Delhiites are still out in the city.

The woman is on ventilator support, doctors at Safdarjung Hospital said. On Monday, she underwent a four-hour surgery. Doctors said her intestines had ruptured and she had genital injuries. Her friend, a 27-year-old engineer who was preparing to take the civil services exam, however, helped the police in preparing sketches of the accused.

Late on Monday, police arrested one of alleged rapists, Ram Singh, a resident of R K Puram Sector 3. Singh was the driver of the bus but on Sunday had let his brother, Mukesh, drive, police said. Singh has reportedly given cops the names of the six other men in the bus on Sunday night. Mukesh and another accused, identified as Kalu, too were nabbed late at night. All three lived in Ravidas Camp slums at sector 3, R K Puram.

Several police teams were raiding places in Noida and other spots in UP and Haryana to nab the others.

Special commissioner of police

Dharmendra

Kumar told TOI, "Seven men were involved in the crime, including the driver who was probably an accomplice. These include Ram Singh's brother, a helper, two vegetable vendors from R K Puram and an employee at the Siri Fort auditorium. All were known to each other. The owner of the bus has been identified as Pradeep Yadav, a private transporter, whose buses ply in two prominent schools of south Delhi and Noida."

Police said the victims had gone to watch Life of Pi at Select City Walk mall on Sunday evening. After the movie, they took an auto from Saket and reached the Munirka bus stand around 9pm. They planned to take a bus to her residence in Mahavir Enclave, near Palam. The accused spotted the woman at the bus stop and one of them called out for passengers going towards Palam and Dwarka.

The couple boarded the bus and bought Rs 10 tickets, said DCP (south)

Chhaya Sharma

. But soon the men began to misbehave with the girl. When her friend objected, he was beaten up with iron rods and gagged near the driver's seat. Five of the accused then took the woman to seats in the middle of the bus and took turns to rape her. All this while, the bus roamed around roads adjoining Mahipalpur, Dwarka and Delhi Cantonment. As per

CCTV

footags, the bus crossed the Dhaula Kuan-Mahipalpur stretch twice.

A passerby, who works as a manager in a company that looks after road safety on NH-8, spotted the two on the road and called the police at 10.22pm. The call first reached the Gurgaon police after which Delhi Police was informed and teams rushed to the spot.

The woman, who completed her studies from

Dehradun

and was interning at a city hospital, was taken to AIIMS Trauma Centre from where she was shifted to Safdarjung hospital in a critical condition. The bus, which was reportedly hired by a private school in Noida, has been impounded. It used to be parked in front of the Yadav Tours and Travel office in R K Puram.

Sources said, on Sunday, the bus was taken by the helper who invited his friends to have liquor inside the vehicle.

"It was not a regular bus. It looked like a luxury bus, as we had found from CCTV footage. The couple boarded it at a well-lit area," said Chhaya Sharma. Based on the statement of the victim's friend, police made sketches of two of the accused persons.