Jamshedpur, July 21: The 40-year-old woman who yesterday said she had been dragged out of a bus by three youths at knifepoint and gang-raped at Satkathia jungle, Chakulia thana area on Wednesday evening, 85km from Jamshedpur, today changed her story after Chakulia police called in bus staff.

When the driver and conductor of Bholanath Bus (Chakulia-Haldipokhar), which the woman claimed to be travelling in on Wednesday when the purported incident occurred, were brought before her today at Chakulia thana, the woman, a contract labourer, confessed the truth.

The woman had neither been sitting in the bus nor dragged out at knifepoint by a trio and gang-raped.

Nor did she have Rs 5,000 on her that the trio looted, as she had claimed before.

What emerges was that after leaving her sister's home in Kashida, Chakulia, on Wednesday evening, she went to a liquor den in Chakulia and had a few drinks with a truck driver she was acquainted with, one Srinivas Mahto a.k.a. Sinu aged 30.

Then, she hitched a ride on his cycle and when he proposed sex while riding through Satkathia jungle, had "consensual sex under influence of liquor", Chakulia OC Shristidhar Mahto said.

Sinu dropped her a kilometre away from her village, Chauira. Then, angered by the whole incident for some reason, the woman made up the gang-rape story before Chauira villagers who took her to a police patrolling van, which took her to Chakulia for registering a gang-rape FIR.

Chakulia police today arrested the 30-year-old Sinu with whom the woman had sex with, for alleged rape. Sinu is a resident of Nutandih near Chauira village under the same Mahulisole panchayat in Dalbhumgarh.

Chakulia OC Mahto said, "We had to arrest Srinivas alias Sinu as there was an allegation of rape and rape (physical act) was confirmed in the woman's medical examination report released by MGM hospital today. Also, the sex was induced by alcohol. He has been sent to Ghatshila subjail on judicial custody. We will now change the FIR charge to sex under influence of liquor in the chargesheet."

Chakulia OC Mahto said the police had been surprised by the fact that no bus staff reported a woman was dragged out on Wednesday evening. But, they thought that indicated the involvement of bus staff in some way. They did not suspect the woman was making up a story.

Contacted for her reaction, Jamshedpur Mahila thana OC Seema Kumari said she didn't know about this case. "But, if a woman files a false rape report, she undermines the seriousness of the real crime that brutalises women," she said.