Three arrested for 'gang rape' of college student in Kolkata

Three people in Kolkata were arrested on Friday for allegedly gang raping a law college student.

The incident took place on June 25 evening when the woman went to the college and was taken by the three accused to a room inside the educational institute and gang-raped, the police said.

The incident happened less than a year after a post-graduate trainee was raped and killed inside the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital.

The accused have been identified as Manojit Mishra, Zaib Ahmed, and Pramit Mukhopadhyay, news agency ANI reported. They will be produced before A.C.J.M. Alipore, South 24 Parganas with a prayer to remand them to police custody.

Among the three arrested, two are senior students from the same college, while one is a former student.

All three accused were arrested and produced before a court which remanded them to police custody for four days.

Police have said the former student is the main accused, and the investigation is under way.

He is a former student of the institute and, ironically, a practising criminal lawyer at the Alipore Police and Sessions Court, college sources said.

College authorities stated that the main accused was also engaged as a temporary non-teaching staff at the institution for a renewable contractual period of 45 days.

Social media profiles of the prime accused claimed that he is a former president of the college's Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad unit and the organisational secretary of the south Kolkata wing of the TMC's student body.

Photographs of the key accused available in public domain also showed him in close proximity to several leaders of the state's ruling dispensation.

The Trinamool Congress, though, denied having any current connection with the accused and pitched for "most severe punishment" if the accused were found guilty.

"The student lodged a complaint with the Kasba Police Station, and the three accused were held on Thursday. As of now, the matter is at an initial stage," the officer said.

The opposition BJP have launched an attack on the ruling Mamata Banerjee-led TMC in the wake of the incident.

Bengal BJP President Sukanta Majumdar told PTI, “Such incidents will keep happening one after another here because the Chief Minister always tries to downplay rape incidents by calling them 'small case'. This is the result of that mindset.”

Police said that the alleged crime and torture took place inside a guard's room on the ground floor of the college next to the students' union office on the evening of June 25 and lasted for over two hours.

Initial investigations revealed that the victim had reached the college in the afternoon to fill up certain academic forms after she was called by "some people".

"According to the complaint she filed at the Kasba police station on Thursday, she was asked by the miscreants to stay back. In the evening she was allegedly taken to the room on the ground floor of the college and raped by the accused till around 10 PM. We have sealed the room, and our forensic experts will soon be there to collect evidence," the officer said.

Sources revealed that the victim alleged she was sexually assaulted after college hours after she turned down a marriage proposal from the main accused and tried to leave the institution premises under severe physical and mental trauma.

"We are trying to find out whether the video footage was forwarded to other numbers or not," he said while adding that the mandatory medical tests on the victim were being conducted.

According to a police source, the victim has alleged in her complaint that she was filmed while being gang-raped.

(With PTI inputs)