Gang rapes three bar girls in B'lore

A 10-member gang allegedly raped three women employed in a Gandhinagar bar, in a house in Jagajyothi Layout at Kengeri on Friday morning. The house is located less than two kilometres from the place where an NLSIU student was sexually assaulted a week ago.

The culprits also abducted four other girls, but later abandoned them at a distance from the house, while decamping  with their valuables.

The house where the women were raped is rented by Sunil, who owns the pub at Gandhinagar, where the women work as bar girls. It is owned by a man identified as Revanna. Sunil had employed seven women to work in his pub, all of whom stayed in the rented house. A couple, who worked as security guards, also stayed in the house. The women, aged between 22 and 30, are from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nepal, Rajasthan and West Bengal. They came to Bangalore a week ago.

The recently developed

Jagajyothi Layout is located in a  isolated area very close to the forested region on the Jnanabharathi campus of Bangalore University and is poorly lit at night. The women living in the house usually returned late at night by cab.

One of the victims, Resham (name changed), told Deccan Herald: “We heard a knock on the door around 2 am. We thought it was houseowner and opened the door. Immediately, around nine people barged into the house, brandishing lethal weapons and two rifles.

They threatened us and made us parade before them. Some of them took four of us outside, blindfolded us, made us get into a van and drove off.”

Another victim, Pinky (name changed), said after being abducted, they were kept in a house. The gang members wanted sex.

“I told them that we are not prostitutes. I told them that I have come to Bangalore to earn money to help my ailing father at Banares. Sometime later, we were taken back in the same vehicle and abandoned at a junction. We hired an autorickshaw and reached home,” she recalled.

Resham and Pinky said they were not sexually assaulted.

The Ramanagara police said the culprits made the girls parade before them and picked three of them and sent the others out with some of their associates. Later, they raped the three women. However, they did not harm the couple. The gang members were drunk. They spoke in Kannada and were aged between 30 and 35, said the police.

Ramanagara Sub-Division DySP Ramalingappa said the suspects had kept a watch on the women for a week. A few local residents had spotted the gang’s vehicle move in and around the house a week ago. They confined the four “bar girls” in a house on Magadi Road and asked them for sex. They abandoned them near Beggars’ Colony before absconding.

The women were medically examined at Rajarajeshwari Medical College and Hospital. The police registered cases under Sections 363 (kidnapping), 376 (rape) and 395 (dacoity) of Indian Penal Code based on a complaint by Purushottam, the security guard of the house.