A day after cracking the Park Street rape case and puncturing chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s claim that the case was “fabricated”, the detective department (DD) of the Kolkata police obtained permission from a city court on Sunday to investigate the incident as a crime of “gangrape”. This has come as another slap on the state government’s face.
In the afternoon, Sumit Bajaj and Ruman Khan were produced at the Bankshal court along with another accused Nasir Khan who was arrested on Saturday late night following Sumit and Ruman’s revelations.
The victim identified them from three pictures shown to her at the city police headquarters at Lalbazar.
The DD appealed to acting chief metropolitan magistrate Chandraprabha Saha for the inclusion of (2)(g) in the Section 376 of the India Penal Code for making it a “gangrape” case. Earlier, it was registered as only “rape” case. Granting the prayer, the judge remanded the three accused to two weeks’ police custody till March 3. Interrogating the trio, the DD learnt that Kadir Khan is the prime accused, sources disclosed. He had introduced himself as Sharafat Ali to the 37-year-old woman at a night-club and later raped her in the car early on February 6, according to a DD officer. Sumit, Ruman, Nasir and another person had helped him in the crime.
A day after the case came to light, Kadir fled the city on February 16. Another accused Johnny is also absconding.
Suspecting that they are hiding in the neighbouring states, the detective department has sent teams there to catch them. Sumit’s car would undergo forensic test.
Although the arrested blamed Kadir for the rape, they restrained the woman physically which led to the inclusion of “gangrape” in the case, a detective department officer explained. Significantly, the involvement of five persons in the crime matches with the complaint of the 37-year-old rape victim. State law minister Moloy Ghatak said that the public prosecutors will fight her case in the court.