Kolkata: A first-year student of a law college in south Kolkata was allegedly “gang-raped” inside the institution by an alumnus and two senior students of the institution, a police officer said Friday.
All three accused were arrested and produced before a court which remanded them to police custody for four days.
The process of the victim’s submission of a confidential statement before a judicial magistrate was also underway, police said.
Taking suo motu cognizance of the incident that occurred on the evening of June 25, the National Women’s Commission asked the Kolkata Police to file a detailed action taken report within three days.
The incident at the South Calcutta Law College triggered the horrific memories of the rape and murder of an intern inside the city’s RG Kar Medical College in August last year which created a major political dust-up across the state.
The prime accused in the recent incident is a former student of the institute and, ironically, a practising criminal lawyer at the Alipore Police and Sessions Court, college sources said.
The two other accused are bonafide students of the college and senior to the victim, police confirmed.
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.
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 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.
According to a police source, the victim has alleged in her complaint that she was filmed while being gang-raped.
“She has alleged that the three accused had kept the mobile footage of the assault and threatened to release it on the internet if she talked to anybody about the incident,” he said.
The mobile phone devices of the three accused have been seized and sent for forensic tests, the officer added.
“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.
Talking to reporters, the Vice Principal of the college Dr Nayna Chatterji said that the prime accused, a former student-turned-lawyer, was given a “purely temporary” appointment on a renewable contract on the basis of a resolution passed by the governing body (GB) of the institute.
“I got the information from the security guard that the police have sealed two rooms of our college. I am trying to find out what has happened. This person was appointed by the GB on a purely temporary basis,” she said.
Workers of the Congress and the AIDSO held protests before the Kasba PS during the day before they were forcefully removed from the spot by the police.
TMCP president Trinankur Bhattacharya, while demanding utmost punishment for the accused, said that the main suspect had never been the organisation’s unit president at the institution since the students’ body there has remained defunct for the last few years.
PTI