A second year medical student at a private medical college in Durgapur was allegedly gang-raped on Friday night when she had stepped out of the college for an evening snack with a friend.

According to police sources around 8.30pm on Friday, the survivor and her friend went for phuchka when some young men began stalking them and passing lewd comments.

The men chased away the survivor’s male friend and dragged her to a forest area behind the college campus where they allegedly gang-raped her.

The perpetrators snatched her mobile phone and threw it away.

The male friend returned with some more people from the hostel and found the grievously injured student on the ground. She was admitted to a local hospital.

Acting on a complaint lodged by the college, the Durgapur New Township police have started a probe, though they are yet to identify or arrest any of the culprits at the time if filing this report.

The parents of the survivor, who are from outside Bengal, reached Durgapur on Friday morning.

“My daughter is unsafe here. Once she recovers we will take her home,” the survivor’s father told newspersons in Durgapur.

The latest crime against a medical student has revived memories of a number of recent sexual attacks on working women and girl students in the state.

Last year in August, a post-graduate trainee at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital was raped and murdered inside the hospital premises.

In June this year a law student at a college in south Calcutta was gang-raped by an ex-student, who also was an ad hoc employee in the same college, along with two other students. The prime accused in the case was also a former leader of the ruling Trinamool’s students’ wing.

Another management student was raped inside a men’s hostel in the prestigious Indian Institute of Management in Joka couple of months ago.

“Delay in investigation and judgments in such cases have emboldened the criminals. The result is a spike in the number of cases of sexual assault and rapes,” said Archana Majumdar, a member of the National Commission for Women.