Student ‘gang-raped’ in Kolkata college, 3 held
Kolkata (PTI): An aspiring student of a law college in Kolkata was allegedly raped inside the institution by an alumnus, even as two seniors of the educational institution assisted the prime accused in the crime, a police officer said on Friday.
All three accused were arrested and produced in court which remanded them in 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.
The ghastly 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 college 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 institution 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 handles of the prime accused revealed 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.
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.
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.
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Mumbai family deaths: FDA finds no watermelon vendor in area to check for affected stock
Mumbai (PTI): The Food and Drug Administration team probing the cause of death of four members of a family in south Mumbai's JJ Marg area have not been able to zero in on any watermelon vendor in the vicinity to check if the fruit had a role to play in the ill-fated incident, an official said on Thursday.
The Dokadia family, residents of Ghari Mohalla on Ismail Kurte Road, had hosted a get-together of relatives on the night of April 25. At around 1 am, hours after the guests had left, Abdullah Dokadia (40), his wife Nasreen (35), and daughters Ayesha (16) and Zaineb (13) ate pieces of a watermelon.
They suffered severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea in the early hours of April 26 and were rushed to a local hospital before being referred to the government-run J J Hospital where all four died during treatment.
"The FDA team visited the house of Dokadia and collected samples of chicken pulao and watermelon pieces. After two days, the leftover chicken pulao had developed fungus growth. The team also tried to locate watermelon vendors to check for any affected lots," he said.
But no vendors were found in the area for the past two days, preventing the FDA team from getting samples, the official added.
The FDA has requested the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to share the report on the food samples collected by them, he added.
A senior Mumbai police official said the force is waiting for FSL reports in the case, adding that questions on presence of sedatives etc in the fruit could be answered only then.
The statements of the kin of the deceased are being recorded to ascertain if it is a case of mass suicide, and it is being checked if the Dokadia family were in debt or distressed over some issue, the police official said.
