A blow-by-blow account of Mumbai police’s all-night search for the five Shakti Mill monsters.Doctors at Jaslok call the NM Joshi Marg police station in Lower Parel and say they are treating a 22-year-old woman who was raped earlier in the evening by five men in a deserted mill compound. Senior Police Inspector Sudhakar Ghagre, who had just left for home, returns to the station and sends a team to the hospital.The NM Joshi Marg police team reaches Jaslok Hospital. They meet the woman’s senior colleague, who narrates the ordeal.The police team realises the enormity of the situation and immediately informs Senior PI Ghagre, who then alerts his seniors and also requests the Crime Branch units to be on standby.Ghagre reaches the Shree Shakti Mill compound with two inspectors and three sub-inspectors to inspect the crime scene. The team, however, does not enter the mill as it is pitch dark. They start questioning people near the compound, one of whom is a woman who runs a snacks stall. She tells the police that addicts and urchins frequent the premises where they consume alcohol and drugs. She says even locals are scared to enter the place, where a murder took place last year.Additonal Commissioner of Police Praveen Salunkhe takes charge of proceedings. DCP Vinayak Deshmukh, who had left early as it was his four-year-old son’s birthday, reaches the spot.Salunkhe briefs Commissioner Satyapal Singh about the incident. The police form 20 teams to round up suspects. Crime Branch deputes all its four units to assist the local police. Among police stations, Shivaji Park, Bhoiwada, NM Joshi Marg are also roped in. Search parties fan out into slums in Dhobi Ghat, Parel and Worli looking for people who regularly hang out in the deserted mill land.Around the same time, another team brings in tea vendors, taxi drivers and other people who have shops around the mill.The police team in the hospital has finished taking down the woman’s statement with the doctors’ permission. While the woman, who is still in a state of shock, is able to furnish only sketchy information, her colleague gives a detailed statement.DCP Deshmukh takes the man to the spot, where Crime Branch teams have also arrived. With no clarity on where the crime took place, the teams return with the man to Crime Branch Unit 3’s office in Parel.The sketches of the five goons are completed based on the woman’s description. All sketches are sent out to the teams using instant messengers. Prints are rushed to the various search parties.The police have rounded up 50 suspects by now. They are brought in one by one to the Senior PI’s cabin where the woman’s colleague is present. He says the assailants are not among the 50.Police get their first breakthrough. One of the teams picks up a pickpocket who hangs out in the mill compound. He happens to be a police informer. The police show him the five sketches and he picks out one of them and identifies him as Qasim Bengali, who later turns out to be the main accused. When the police realise he is missing from the list of people they had rounded up, they make a fresh list of 10 regulars who are missing with the informer’s help.A police team reaches Qasim’s house in a shanty in Madanpura. His mother is alone there. They take her to the police station for questioning. She breaks down and says she knew what her son had done earlier in the day.She says when word started to go around that the police have started looking for five men for raping a woman, he broke down and confessed to her. She says she gave him Rs 2,000 and asked him to go into hiding.Crucially, she tells the police Qasim told her about the four other rapists and gives their names. The police now have all five names: Qasim Bangali, Prince Ashfaque, Salim, Abdul Alias Chand, and Vijay Jadhav.Police teams head for the houses of the four others, but none of them are at home. They take in their parents and relatives for questioning, but get no clues. They then turn to their informer again.The informer says he knows a friend of Chand’s in Dhobi Talao. He calls up other contacts in Dhobi Talao and asks them if they saw Chand that night. The police get confirmation that Chand is hiding at the friend’s house in Dhobi Talao.A police team reaches Dhobi Talao house, where Chand is sleeping in a mezzanine loft. He had not told his friend about the evening. He has told the friend that the cops were looking for him in an assault case. The police arrest Chand.Chand is taken to the office of the Crime Branch Unit 3, where he confesses to the crime. The police bring in the woman’s colleague, who positively identified Chand as one of the rapists. The police book him under Sections 376D, 341, 343, and 34 of the IPC.Based on information from Chand, the police put the mobile numbers of the four rapists on trace and have sent teams to Kurla, Thane, Virar and Nala Sopara. The police added that three of the five men have past criminal records. Qasim and Chand were arrested late last year in a robbery case.♦ Housed in a 10-acre compound, the Shree Shakti Mill has been defunct since 1981, when the owners wound up the business and an official liquidator was appointed. It used to have silk and cotton manufacturing units and employed around 1,000 people.♦ With vandals and anti-social elements stripping the property bare over the years, all that stands now is just a crumbling ground-plus-one storey structure in the middle of the plot.♦ While children and teenagers from the neighbouring slums play in the football field-sized terrace during the day, the structure turns into a hangout for louts in the evening. Alcohol bottles, playing cards, food packets and used condoms are strewn all over the compound.