India's tour of Zimbabwe 2016: Krishna Satyanarayan and Rajkumar Krishnan identified as rape accused

After last week's controversy when Indian nationals were arrested on charges of rape, the identities of the accused have finally been revealed. Zimbabwean media had first reported that an Indian cricketer was involved. However, reports that followed clarified that it was two Indians associated with the sponsors of the series who were arrested.

As per the reports, the ones who were arrested by the Harare police are Krishna Satyanarayan and Rajkumar Krishnan. Satyanarayan is associated with ITW Sports while Krishnan is businessman based in Zambia.

The victim is from South Africa and she was attending a funeral in Harare and stayed at the Meikles Hotel. The Harare police have confirmed that the girl was raped by the aforementioned individuals at the hotel. The two accused men have been remanded in custody, however, they are expected to apply for bail in the High Court.

As reported earlier, sources from the hotel said that the victim was hanging around in the hotel lobby before being drugged and allegedly abused.

Harare Assistant Police Commissioner, Charity Charamba said, “The victim has pointed to an Indian national from the batch that came in last week, at this point I’m not in the position to reveal whether it’s a player or official as I’m bound by law. But what I can confirm is that the accused appeared in court on Saturday.”

It was confirmed by New Zimbabwe that according to the girl's statement, she woke up to “bloodied undergarments in one of the Indian cricketer's rooms” also saying that she did not seem to have any recollection of how she got there.

Owing to the sensitive nature of the case, the incident was kept as private as possible so as not to spark a controversy during the ongoing T20I series between the two countries. However, with the names being revealed, it can be expected that the guilty will receive the punishment they deserve.