The six youths in custody for allegedly gangraping a teenaged city school student used the pseudonym ploy to conceal their identity. The strategy was aimed at first foxing the victim and then police.

The sixth accused in the case, arrested in Darbhanga on Wednesday and brought to the state capital on Thursday, disclosed that several of the accused called each other in fictitious names. He told the police that the other five in the group called him by a new name on June 14, the day the girl was gangraped in the Rajvanshi Nagar-based flat.

The accused, who used to work as a domestic help in the flat in which the girl was tormented, was sent to Beur Central Jail on 14-day judicial custody.

Deputy inspector-general (central range) Sunil Kumar said the statement of the sixth accused had been recorded on video. It would be sent to the court too.

“The sixth accused said the other five in the group had called him by a different name altogether on the day the crime was committed. For a moment, he was also confused. Besides him, three other accused, including the flat owner, were called by different names,” the senior officer (DIG) said.

Sources in the police said the accused resorted to the pseudonym ploy to conceal their identity and confuse the victim. “They changed their names in a bid to avoid arrest if the crime was reported to the police. They thought the girl would not be able to give the correct identity of her tormenters and the police would be misguided,” said an officer.

The ploy, the sources said, worked to an extent.

The victim, in her statement at the court of the chief judicial magistrate (CJM), had said seven persons had sexually assaulted her.

“If seven persons actually tormented her, five seemed to have changed their names in front of the girl. The victim knew two of the accused through her boyfriend. Now, if there is a seventh accused, as the statement says, then it becomes a bit confusing for the police. The girl has mentioned the name of the seventh accused. The domestic help in the custody confirmed that the group used that name for the seventh accused,” an officer told The Telegraph.

The sources said the domestic help confessed that there was a seventh person and he could identify him. But the police did not confirm it.

Patna senior superintendent of police Amrit Raj told The Telegraph: “I am not quite sure about his statement. All the police can say is that if there is a seventh person involved, he will be traced and nabbed.”

The sixth accused also divulged to the police that a minor had made the CDs and MMS clips of the victim. The DIG said: “The accused told the police that a minor had made the CDs and MMS clips.”

Sources said the MMS and CDs were created before the crime. They were used to blackmail the girl and rape her on June 14.

Six accused in the case are in the police custody now. Two were arrested from outside Bihar.

The prime accused was picked up from Shimla. Another was arrested from Chandigarh.