‘No gangrape’: Bengal police arrest classmate of Durgapur medical student
Asansol-Durgapur police commissioner Sunil Kumar Choudhary said the survivor’s friend was not above suspicion
Kolkata: A 23-year old classmate of the medical student, who alleged gangrape in the forested area near her college campus in West Bengal’s Durgapur on October 10, was arrested on Tuesday evening shortly after Asansol-Durgapur police commissioner Sunil Kumar Choudhary ruled out gang-rape and said he was not above suspicion.
The 23-year-old survivor’s classmate, a resident of Bengal’s Malda district, was detained on October 11 as he had taken her out for dinner when the incident happened. Five local villagers were arrested earlier but Choudhary, who held his first press conference on the crime an hour before the sixth arrest, said only one person was involved.
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“Investigation and medical reports have so far indicated the involvement of only one person. The roles of the others are being reviewed. The friend of the victim is not above suspicion,” Choudhary said hours after the police reconstructed the crime scene at the reported place of occurrence.
“That one person is among the suspects,” Choudhary said emphatically.
“The victim’s friend was taken to the place of occurrence along with the five others. The clothes he was wearing (during the incident) were seized and sent for forensic test along with the clothes of the other suspects,” Choudhary said. “The statement of the victim was recorded by a magistrate on Tuesday afternoon,” he added.
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The victim’s father, too, had named her classmate as a suspect in his police complaint on October 11. Police said the arrested student will be produced before the Durgapur court on Wednesday.
The woman, a resident of Jaleshwar in Odisha, is admitted at the private IQ City Medical College Hospital where she is a student. Her medical tests were done at the same hospital.
Security camera footage collected by police from the college showed the survivor and her male friend leaving the campus at 7.54 pm. The male student returned around 8.42 pm and was seen loitering around. He did not report the incident to anyone. He left again at 8.48 pm and returned with the survivor at 9.29 pm.
The survivor later alleged that the suspects called up her friend from her phone after she was gang-raped. Both claimed to have left the campus to have dinner.
“The college verbally informed us around 1 am and lodged a written complaint at 3.28 am,” Choudhary said.
The woman could not name any of the five suspects. The arrests were made on the basis of phone call records and circumstantial evidence, the investigating officers told HT.
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Two suspects, Sheikh Safiqul, 30, and Sheikh Nasiruddin, 23, were remanded in police custody for nine days on Monday. The other three, Apu Bauri,21, Firdous Shiekh, 23, and Sheikh Riazuddin, 31, were remanded in police custody for 10 days on Sunday. All live in local villages and work as wage labourers, police found.
HT reported on Monday that police found several discrepancies in the statements made by the survivor, her friend, the medical reports and the arrested suspects.
The investigating officers told HT that in her initial statement to the doctor the survivor mentioned three persons and alleged that only one committed the crime but later told the police that five persons dragged her to the forest and gang-raped her. The officers told HT that evidence did not point to gangrape.
Asked whether the arrested villagers found the survivor and her friend in a compromising position - indications of which emerged during the probe - Choudhary said: “That is under investigation.”
Since the survivor alleged that the suspects took away her mobile phone and demanded ₹3,000 for returning it, police added charges of snatching in addition to Section 70 (1) (gang rape) and Section 3(5) (crime caused with common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Choudhary said. The phone was recovered from one of the suspects.
Asansol-Durgapur police commissionerate officers said the survivor’s father refused to have security personnel the authorities wanted to provide.
The father again alleged before the local media on Tuesday that the police did not cooperate with him initially and started acting only after Odisha chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi intervened. He was found moving around Durgapur town in a beacon-fitted car bearing an Odisha registration number.
Reacting to the allegations, Choudhary said: “When he arrived here we had a meeting at my office for one hour. He has my phone number and the numbers of all senior officers. We offered him personal security but he refused saying he would stay with a relative. We have posted police personnel at the hospital for his daughter’s security.”
The Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit continued to hold a sit-in agitation in Durgapur and several BJP leaders from Odisha arrived at the hospital on Tuesday but they were not let in after the Calcutta high court banned the entry of outsiders.
“Acting on a petition the hospital authorities filed saying rush of outsiders and the agitations were affecting the classes and movement of patients, the single bench of justice Shampa Dutta Paul ruled on Tuesday afternoon that no outsider, other than the investigating officers, can enter the premises without the hospital’s permission,” a lawyer who was present during the hearing said.
“The court also ordered the police to set up pickets outside the hospital,” the lawyer added.
