Bharat Yadav, the gram pradhan of Garhi Chowkhandi village, said the elders of the village were not allowed to meet the accused. “We are yet to know the other side of the story. The police barged into the boys’ homes early morning and took them away without letting them even speak to their family. They are educated youths after all,” he said.

The ten accused, all from the Garhi Chowkhandi village, are accused of gangraping an MBA student in Noida on January 5.

The police said the boys have confessed to the crime. “The villagers know the boys have committed the crime. The accused themselves have confessed to it. Tomorrow, we will apply for the police remand of the accused, who are in judicial custody,” a senior police officer said.

Two forensic teams from Lucknow and Agra also visited the crime spot in Noida. “The teams have scanned the 3 km area around the crime spot. They took the clothes and bat of the sixth accused, Little, for examination,” Naveen Arora, senior superintendent of police, Gautam Budhha Nagar, said.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party has called for a bandh in Noida on Friday to protest against the arrest of the accused. According to the party’s Noida unit president Dalveer Yadav, Amar Singh will visit the area tomorrow. “We can believe that the rape was committed by one or two men, but the claim that ten men are involved is unacceptable. One of the accused was with his wife and had gone for a check-up around 7 pm. We cannot let innocent boys become victims of the Noida police,” Yadav said.