A 24-year-old law student was allegedly gang-raped inside the South Calcutta Law College by a former student on Wednesday evening while two other students watched, suggesting women’s safety had not improved since the RG Kar rape-murder last August.
The woman has told police she was tortured for over three hours, between 7.30pm and 10.50pm, on Wednesday. She was first assaulted inside the union room at the Kasba college and later beaten with a hockey stick and raped inside the room of the security guard, who obediently stepped out and sat outside during her ordeal.
College sources said main accused Monojit Mishra, a 31-year-old practising lawyer, was an ex-student who once headed the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad unit at the college. He had been appointed as a casual non-teaching employee at the college six months ago on a recommendation from a Trinamool MLA.
Mishra attacked the woman when she refused his marriage proposal, police said.
Students Zaib Ahmed, 19, and Pramit Mukherjee, 20, watched as Mishra raped her, the woman has told the police.
South Calcutta Law College at 57, K.N.Sen Road, Kolkata - 42 on Friday afternoon. The Telegraph picture by Bishwarup Dutta.
Any rape assisted by others counts as a gang-rape, a charge that can be invoked against all the accused and is punishable by jail for 20 years to life.
The woman said Mishra had shown her two videos that had captured her naked and being raped, and threatened to circulate them if she did not remain quiet about the assault or failed to “cooperate” with him and meet him whenever he called her.
The police did not specify who shot the videos.
The woman lodged a complaint with Kasba police station on Thursday.
All three accused have been arrested and charged with gang rape, wrongful confinement and joint liability.
Medical tests conducted at a government medical college have confirmed sexual assault, the police and chief public prosecutor Sourin Ghosal said.
Officers said Mishra and Ahmed had been arrested from Talbagan in Kasba on Thursday evening and Mukherjee from his home in Howrah early on Friday.
The woman has told the police she had been offered the post of secretary to the Trinamool girls’ unit at the college on Wednesday afternoon.
She said Ahmed and Mukherjee told her she had to be loyal to Mishra and the Trinamool students’ unit. She agreed. When she entered the union room, she said, Mishra proposed marriage. She refused, saying she had a boyfriend.
Mishra then tried to force himself on her inside the union room, which Ahmed and Mukherjee had locked from outside, she said.
According to the complaint, Mishra then instructed the two associates to take her to the security guard’s room, where he hit her with a hockey stick and raped her in the duo’s presence.
The security guard was asked to sit outside the room, which he allegedly did.
“I have told the college authorities whatever I had to say,” the security guard said on Friday evening.
Some of those who had participated in the unprecedented citizens’ protests after the atrocity of August 9 last year, when a postgraduate trainee was raped and murdered while on night shift at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, spoke of a sense of “betrayal”.
“From RG Kar to the law college barbarism, nothing much has changed. We fought on the streets, stayed through the night, people rallied together demanding justice but there is a sense of betrayal. The government has failed us,” said Dinesh Jha, a Burdwan resident.
A former civic volunteer, Sanjay Roy, has been sentenced to life in the RG Kar case.
A police statement said: “Kasba police station responded to a complaint of sexual assault involving a female law student in Kasba. An FIR was registered without delay, and within 12 hours, all three accused named in the complaint were apprehended. They have been remanded to (sic) police custody till July 1, 2025.”
The trio’s lawyer, Azam Khan, said: “The actual incident is not how it’s being represented. An issue is being created over who will become the general secretary. This is a matter of student politics.”
The law college’s vice-principal, Nayna Chatterji, said Mishra had been appointed as a casual employee on a recommendation from the college’s governing body president and Trinamool MLA from Budge Budge, Ashok Deb.
This newspaper made several attempts to contact Deb but he answered neither the calls nor the text messages.
“Of the three people interviewed for the post, Mishra was selected as he was a practising lawyer. He used to look after paperwork,” Chatterji said.
She could not clarify the nature of the paperwork.
College sources said Mishra had finished his course at the college four years ago but continued to wield a lot of clout at the institution.
A forensic team has collected evidence from the union room and the guard’s room.
Senior police officers visited the college and Kasba police station on Friday afternoon. Asked by the police, vice-principal Chatterji was at the spot during the investigation.
Although Chatterji claimed she had learnt about the alleged gang rape from the TV news on Friday morning, Calcutta University vice-chancellor Santa Datta Dey said the vice-principal had informed the university’s dean of law about the incident on Thursday afternoon.
“I don’t know why the vice-principal has been saying this (about learning of the incident on Friday morning),” Dey told The Telegraph.
“She informed our dean of law, Jatin Kumar Das, about the incident on Thursday afternoon when she went to Hazra Law College for a meeting. Das advised her to take action in accordance with the law.”
Dey added: “On Friday, I told Das to give it to her (Chatterji) in writing what she had been verbally advised about on Thursday, and to seek a report from her.”
Told about the VC’s remarks, Chatterji said: “I reiterate that I came to know about the incident on Friday morning. Cops from Kasba police station had late on Thursday night told me only that something had happened and that I needed to come to the college on Friday.”
The National Commission for Women took suo motu cognisance of the incident on Friday. Chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar wrote to the Calcutta police commissioner seeking a detailed action-taken report within three days.
The student wings of various political parties demonstrated outside Kasba police station and the college gate. Many were involved in clashes with the police. A road blockade in front of Kasba police station on the Rasbehari Connector caused severe traffic congestion.
