Kolkata: Four persons have been held in connection with Friday’s alleged gangrape of an MBBS student of a private medical college at Durgapur in West Bengal’s West Burdwan district.
Police said three of the suspects were identified as Apu Bauri, Sheikh Firdous and Sheikh Riyazuddin. A local court remanded them in police custody. The male classmate with whom the survivor had left campus to have food was still under detention for questioning. Later in the day, Asansol-Durgapur Police Commissionerate’s deputy commissioner (east) Abhishek Gupta told HT that a fourth suspect was nabbed on Sunday and he would be produced in court on Monday.
“We are investigating all angles. The survivor’s friend is being questioned. Security camera footage is being examined,” the DCP told reporters.
A forensic team has scanned the jungle, located 500 metres away from the campus, where the crime was committed.
A state health department official said the government has sought a report on the incident from IQ City Medical College and Hospital, where the survivor studied.
“We have been framed. We are innocent,” one of the accused, whose face was covered, told the media while being taken to court.
The survivor, a resident of Jaleshwar in Odisha, is undergoing treatment. Her father rushed to Durgapur and lodged the police complaint on Saturday.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee confirmed the arrest of the three suspects while speaking to reporters at the Kolkata airport before she was leaving for the flood-hit north Bengal. However, her remarks on the student leaving the campus at night triggered outrage in the state.
She said, “We take cases like these very seriously in Bengal. Three persons have been arrested and investigation is on. But how could the student leave the campus at night? It is a forest area. The private medical college must take care of its students.”
“The girl’s statement has been recorded. We are not defending anyone but girls should not leave campus at night like this. The private institution should not allow it. Everybody has the right to move freely but there should be a system for students who stay in hostels. I have asked the police to take stringent action. Nobody should be spared,” she added.
To be sure, the crime was committed around 8 pm on Friday and the survivor’s father said his daughter’s classmates called him up around 9.30 pm.
The 23-year-old student was allegedly gang-raped after she stepped out with her friend. The miscreants allegedly threatened to kill her if she raised an alarm. They also snatched her mobile phone and ₹200 she was carrying, her father alleged.
“Security camera footage at the medical college showed the survivor and her friend leaving the campus around 7.54 pm. The male student returned around 8.42 pm and was loitering around. He left again at 8.48 pm and returned with the survivor around 9.30 pm,” a police officer said requesting anonymity.
“The survivor said that the culprits called up her friend from her phone after the rape but kept the device saying it would be returned only if she paid ₹3,000. It was seized from the accused after their arrest,” the officer added.
Sudarshana Gangopadhyay, the public relations officer of the institution, said the college cannot stop students from walking in and out of the campus.
“The survivor and her friend are adults. How can the college control their movements? We will cooperate with the government in every way possible,” she said.
Former Bengal BJP president and Union minister of state Sukanta Majumdar demanded Mamata Banerjee’s resignation after her remarks on Sunday.
“From the highest echelons of administration while directly handling the home department herself (serving as her own police minister) and above all, being a woman, her remark is utterly deplorable and shameful!” Majumdar wrote in a social media post while BJP leaders held agitations in Durgapur.
“The chief minister cannot possibly evade responsibility for the absolute collapse of law and order in West Bengal. Shockingly, even now, she has chosen to shift the blame onto the private medical college! This, despite the fact that just a few months ago, a young woman doctor was brutally raped and murdered inside a government medical college hospital,” Majumdar wrote.
“It is now Mamata Banerjee’s moral duty to step down without any further delay,” he added.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has targeted the government on this issue, citing the rape and murder of a post-graduate trainee doctor inside the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata last year and the gangrape of a student at the state-run South Calcutta Law College earlier this year.
Reacting to the opposition’s allegations on the law and order situation in Bengal, Mamata Banerjee said, “In Manipur and Uttar Pradesh we have seen so many cases of rape. What action was taken by those governments? We have seen a rape victim being set on fire and murdered before she could reach the court,” Banerjee said, targeting the BJP which is in power in these states.
“In our state we file chargesheets in cases like these in two-three months. Our courts have announced death sentences in numerous cases,” she said.
The survivor’s mother told the media on Saturday that her daughter had gone out to have dinner on her friend’s request.
“Three people started following them. Her friend abandoned her and fled. My daughter also ran but lost track of her friend. The three men found her alone and dragged her to the forest area. Two more men joined them. One of them committed the crime and snatched her phone. They threatened to kill her if she shouted,” she said.
In the police complaint, the survivor’s father named the student with whom she went out.
“We received a call from her classmates around 9.30 pm on Friday. They said she had been raped. We reached the campus on Saturday morning. She is not well and is admitted at the hospital. The miscreants demanded money in return for her phone. They even took the ₹200 she was carrying,” the father said.
