Nearly three years after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called the rape of an Anglo-Indian woman in central Kolkata a “fabricated incident”, a city court found three of the accused in the case guilty.
Two others, including the prime accused Kader Khan, are still absconding. The court will announce the quantum of punishment on Friday. The victim, a single mother of two, passed away of meningo-encephalitis earlier this year aged 40.
The woman, who was 37-years-old when the incident happened, had accused the five men of giving her a lift outside the popular nightclub of a luxury hotel in the city.
She told the police that on the night of February 6, 2012, Kader befriended her and offered a lift but when she went to the car, she found there were others in the vehicle.
The police managed to crack the case by scanning CCTV footage installed inside the hotel’s lobby and outside, which revealed that she indeed boarded the car with the men, as the victim mentioned in her statement. Of the five accused, the police managed to apprehend Nasir Khan, Sumit Bajaj, and Nishat Alam, while Kader and Md Ali Khan are still absconding.
Raped at gun point
The men took turns to rape her at gunpoint in the moving vehicle and threw her out at a crossing a couple of kilometres away from the luxury hotel on Park Street.
While contradictory reports suggest the two absconding men are in Bangladesh or Thailand, police sources said that the manhunt is still on.
45 witnesses
The trial for the case was held in-camera a city court, where the prosecution presented 45 witnesses. The woman, known later as the ‘Park Street rape victim’, came out in the open and appeared in interviews on different news channels. While a Supreme Court directive prevents anyone from naming a rape victim in public, the woman refused to be known as the victim and turned into an activist for rights of raped women and took part in conferences and demonstrations in different parts of the state.
The case shot to national attention when Mamata called it a “fabricated incident” to malign her government. The Chief Minister drew further criticism when her administration reportedly shunted Damayanti Sen, erstwhile Joint Commissioner (Crime) of Kolkata Police, to a relatively insignificant posting after she cracked the case and arrested the three men on trial.