Mumbai, Sept. 3: Three of the five accused in the Mumbai gang-rape sexually assaulted a 19-year-girl at the same Shakti Mills compound three weeks before they brutalised the photojournalist there, the teenager has alleged.

Police sources said the teenager, a telephone operator with a private firm, lodged a police complaint yesterday evening alleging she had been raped on July 31 after being dragged into the compound when she and her boyfriend were passing the deserted stretch. The 22-year-old photojournalist was raped on August 22.

The teenager has said she was so traumatised and frightened that she left Mumbai for Chhattisgarh with her boyfriend on July 31 night itself and stayed with a close friend of her companion for a month before returning two days ago. Once they were dragged into the mill compound — a virtual jungle in south central Mumbai — the trio called two more youths and tied up her male companion before taking turns to rape her, police sources said.

“She has identified Salim Ansari, Vijay Jadhav, and Qasim Bangali as the three men. We have arrested one of the other two,” a police source said.

He said the suspect, detained earlier in the day before being formally arrested around 8.30pm tonight, was a minor and added that a hunt was on for the other accused. One of the five suspects in the assault on the photojournalist is also a juvenile.

After the teenager left the city on July 31, apparently without informing her parents, her mother had lodged a missing complaint with Bhandup police station near their home in nearby Mulund. But the girl later called home to say she was fine and would return soon.

After she came back, the police called her yesterday. The girl broke down while recording her statement and revealed she had been sexually assaulted by the accused. This morning, the case was transferred from Bhandup police station to N.M. Joshi Marg police station where the August 22 rape case was lodged.

Jadhav had told his interrogators that the group had earlier sexually assaulted a ragpicker, a commercial sex worker and molested a girl who entered the compound accompanied by her boyfriend in the past six months.

The Maharashtra government today said it had paid medical expenses of Rs 1.85 lakh for the treatment of the photojournalist.