Kolkata : The Kolkata Police on Saturday arrested a security guard of South Kolkata Law College in connection with the gang-rape of a first-year student on the college premises. According to police sources, the preliminary investigation revealed that the security guard, Pinaki Banerjee, was present at the time of the gang-rape. Acting on the accused’s instructions, he left his guard room, leaving the woman alone.
The 24-year-old student was assaulted for several hours inside the security guard’s room on June 25 by the key accused, Monojit Mishra, a former president of the college’s Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad unit and reportedly an organisational secretary of the south Kolkata wing of the TMC’s student body. The woman alleged that the security guard was made to sit outside the room after the main gate of the college was locked.
The prime accused, Monojit Mishra, was arrested on Wednesday, while co-accused Zaib Ahmed, 19, a first-year student, and Pramit Mukherjee, a second-year student, were arrested on Thursday. According to the student’s complaint, she was attacked when she reached the campus to file a form for examination. She was taken by force to the guard room, where she was undressed and raped.
The Trinamool Congress condemned the gang-rape and urged that the matter not be politicised. Addressing a press conference, West Bengal minister Shashi Panja said the state government stands firmly with the woman and her family. The opposition BJP alleged that the incident highlights how students are not safe in educational institutions across the state. Union Minister and BJP’s West Bengal president Sukanta Majumdar claimed that law and order in the state is in a shambles” despite Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee directly overseeing the Home Department.
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