Mumbai:In a security lapse, one of the five accused in the gang-rape of the Mumbai photo-journalist has managed to escape from the custody of Mumbai police.

The accused Siraj Rehman Khan , who was supposed to be in the custody of the Thane Jail authorities, was not produced in court today as two departments of Maharashtra police argued over who had him in their custody.

The jail authorities in Thane told the court that they did not have Khan but the Crime Branch did. The Mumbai Crime Branch, in turn, denied having Khan, in what is turning out to be a lapse of monumental proportions. Reports suggest it could be a clerical error.

Last week, Afzal Usmani, a suspected member of terror group Indian Mujahideen and accused of serial bomb blasts in Gujarat in which at least 50 people were killed, escaped from a court, triggering a massive manhunt

The Mumbai Police had last week filed a charge sheet on Thursday against the five accused of raping the 22-year-old girl inside the desolate Shakti Mills compound on August 22 while she was on an assignment with a colleague.

Siraj Rehman Khan, along with Salim Ansari, Vijay Jadhav, Kasim Bengali and a minor, allegedly assaulted the colleague and tied him up in belts before taking turns to rape the girl, holding a broken beer bottle to her head.

The police had arrested all the accused in less than 72 hours after the crime, which outraged the nation and had disturbing parallels to the Delhi gang-rape for which four men were sentenced to death a fortnight ago.

This security lapse has raised many questions against the Mumbai police as a terror suspect had managed to escape from a court hearing few days back.

Police able to find the accused

One of the five accused in the gang-rape of a young photojournalist in Mumbai was reported ‘untraceable’ and later ‘found’, in a monumental slip-up that comes close after a terror suspect escaped from a court hearing exposing a massive security breach.