Crime

Not clinically, but of course, it's a case of gang rape, legally. And the major twist of the entire alleged 'gang rape' of the second year medical student came much later with the arrest of Wasif Ali - the victim's boyfriend who had taken the girl to the jungle at the odd late evening hours about a km from the college gate on last Friday.

 

The police made the sixth arrest before even the complainant father of the rape victim who demanded a CBI probe in the morning could anticipate.

 

The Commissioner of Police, Asansol Durgapur Police, Sunil Chowdhury, in the early evening hours, claimed that the role of the victim’s boyfriend still was under scanner. He said: "He was quizzed frequently since five days, and some of his statements appeared to be suspicious and needed to be scrutised further." Chowdhury denied any information about the case to be handed over to the CBI, as was desired by the father of the victim girl. Prior to all these, the police had seized the attires of Wasif before he was taken into the jungle this afternoon to help the reconstruction of the crime scene.

 

The police investigations pertaining to the alleged 'gang rape' of the second year student of private owned IQ City Medical College in Durgapur on the fifth day of the nuisance that rocked Bengal, revealed that the physical offence was committed by a single person, which two others however relished to see. The current legal framework of the country suggests that the persons accompanying a rapist and not resisting him are likely to be liable to be slapped similar charges with the physical offender. 

 

"The offence was committed by a single person, and as the medico-legal examination suggests, no involvement of any other could be established as yet," the Commissioner of Asansol Durgapur Police, Sunil Chowdhury stated.

 

The police had taken the arrested five youths in remand and had forwarded them to the ACJM Court bringing charges of gang rape and assembly for common intentions [under Section 70 (1) and 3(5) of the BNS.

 

"The presence of the arrested five youths in connection with the alleged 'gang rape' of the second year medical student was established during the reconstruction of the crime today," said the CP. He said: "We've already arrested the entire five persons, and the mobile phone of the victim that was snatched from the possession of the victim was recovered from one of the arrested youths." 

 

Reconstruction of the crime was conducted at the place of alleged gang rape inside the 5 Hector peri-urban forest barely 1 km away from the private medical college today.

 

The police team, led by the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Durgapur, Abhishek Gupta, first brought one of the five arrested in two phases to the place of occurrence at 12:20 pm. After 40 minutes, at 1:00 pm, the boyfriend of the victim girl was also escorted to the place, and the process continued for another 45 minutes. Gupta himself took the videography of the proceeding. The DCP said: "The reconstruction was essential to understand the magnitude of the offence." Before the reconstruction, Gupta and the police team, including the Investigating Officer Gautam Biswas, walked from the medical college's south gate to the place of occurrence to estimate the time length. 

 

After the accused and the girl's boyfriend were taken out of the location, the cops continued for another 15 minutes of survey there at the Pardoi village forest site beside the Parangunj burning ghat of New Township Police Station area. The boyfriend hailing from Malda district himself is also a batchmate of the victim second year girl student hailing from Jaleshwar, Odhisa. 

 

Another Police team, meanwhile, accompanied the 3rd Judicial Magistrate of the Durgapur Court Debkalpa Sarkar this afternoon to the IQ City Hospital's cabin where the victim girl is still kept under medical supervision. The Magistrate recorded a statement of the victim girl under the procedural guidelines prescribed by the Section 183 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. One police team accompanied two of the accused  - Nasiruddin Sheikh and Riazuddin Sheikh to their houses at adjacent Bijra village, where they seized their clothes those they were wearing on the day of offence.