Mangalore : In connection with the alleged gang rape of a Bantwal girl in Kumble, the police apprehended three persons from Kanhangad on December 28, Friday.

However, the arrested namely  Muhammed Kunhi alias Asgar (24), Hussain (26) and Unais (35) have denied the charges and said they came to know about it through the media and therefore had switched off their mobile phones.

They  revealed during interrogations that they had come to know the girl at a mall in Mangalore. They said she telephoned Asgar on December 24 stating she was in Uppala. The three went to her in a car and from there to a water park and then returned to Uppala. They said they dropped the girl at the railway station as she said she had to visit a relative.

However, it was earlier reported that the girl was raped by the three who invited her to Uppala, in a moving car and then dumped her near the railway station where an auto driver named Ganesh on the pretext of helping her took her along and then allegedly raped her along with two others. The girl who was found in Kumble was later hospitalized.

Police have already arrested the auto driver Ganesh.