Woman gang-raped in moving car in Kolkata

A woman was gang-raped in a moving car at the city’s eastern fringes on Sunday night and thrown off the vehicle in the early hours on Monday in Kolkata.

The incident brought back memories of the much talked-about Park Street rape case in 2012.

The recent gang-rape comes within days of Mamata being sworn in as the chief minister for the second term. The young woman, a bar dancer of Nepalese origin, was forced to get into a car at around 10:30 pm on Sunday and was gang-raped in the moving vehicle. She was picked up from Baguihati, when she was set to meet some friends and visit a nightclub at Sector V, the city’s IT hub.

While details are still sketchy, the police have launched a manhunt for the four accused. Senior officials said that the girl lived in a working women’s mess at Baguihati, close to the bar she worked in. She was found unconscious on early Monday morning at Baisakhi traffic island in Salt Lake, a township adjacent to Kolkata. Seeing her on the footpath in torn cloths, some morning walkers called the Electronic Complex Women Police Station.

Authorities took her to a nearby state-run hospital, where she is currently undergoing treatment. After recording her statement, the police started the case and lodged a formal complaint against four youth, whose names have not been disclosed. Officials suspect the men were regulars at the bar where the girl in her early-twenties performed. “We’re not yet sure whether she was abducted or she willingly got into the car because she recognised them,” a source said.

Officials said the men took turns to rape her as they moved around Salt Lake in the car, before dumping her at dawn.