JOIN USIn a major breakthrough, the police on Tuesday apprehended three of the four men who abducted and gang-raped a 25-year-old girl in a moving vehicle.
All the men confessed to the crime that took place at Kolkata’s Salt Lake on Sunday night, said the police.
The detective department of Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate traced the three men to Haroa in North 24 Parganas, using footage from traffic CCTV cameras and tracing the cell phone tower location of one of the perpetrators.
The three men were identified as Arnab Bera, Sourav De and Sukhendu Nag, drivers of pool cars on contract for IT companies that operate out of Salt Lake Sector V, the city’s IT hub. While Arnab and Sourav are from Beliaghata in east Kolkata, Sukhendu hails from Haroa, but stayed in a rented accommodation at Chowbhaga, close by. The police believe that he was driving the car on Sunday night.
Recounting her night of horror before the police, the victim said she had taken a taxi to Sector V, where she was scheduled to meet a friend at a multiplex around 10 pm. Not familiar with the area, she got down at an earlier intersection. Seeing Arnab standing close by, she asked him the way to the multiplex. He called up a friend to ask for directions.
Soon, the other men arrived in a white Sumo and offered lift. When she refused, they dragged her in and drove off towards Salt Lake, as the men took turns to rape her in the moving car. At around 4 am on Monday, they dumped the unconscious girl near Baisakhi traffic island at Salt Lake, where morning walkers saw her and informed the police.
Senior police officials said that the girl managed to describe Arnab, following which a sketch was made and shown around. When a civic police volunteer recognised him as one of the drivers ferrying employees of a top IT firm, the police got hands on his cell phone and traced his location to Haroa. The men were hiding at Sukhendu’s ancestral home to avoid the manhunt.
The woman, a 25-year-old dancer at a bar on VIP Road, was discharged from a state-run hospital on Tuesday, where she underwent a series of tests since the police got her admitted after recovering her on Monday. Authorities are still looking for the fourth perpetrator, whose name is being kept under wraps. The seized vehicle has been sent for forensic examination, senior officials said.