Odisha college student allegedly raped by six men, assault filmed
All the six accused have been arrested under various sections of Indian Penal Code.
A Dalit college student going home with her fiance after visiting a temple was raped in Odisha’s Ganjam district by six men who recorded the assault on their phones, in the latest incident of sexual violence against women in the country, police said on Tuesday.
The second-year student and her fiance were on her way back from Thakurani Temple in Bhanjanagar area of Ganjam on Monday afternoon when the men on two motorcycles intercepted them. They allegedly thrashed the couple and snatched away three mobile phones from them. They then took her to a nearby cashew nut grove and sexually assaulted her.
While main accused Siba Nayak committed the act, his accomplices recorded the incident on their mobile phones.
The woman alleged that no passersby came to her rescue.
Ganjam superintendent of police Ashish Singh said the woman knows two to three men who assaulted her. Singh added the woman will undergo a medical examination.
All the six accused have been arrested under various sections of Indian Penal Code for rape, abduction, dacoity. They have also been booked under SC/ST Atrocities Act and IT Act.
The latest incident comes a week after the gangrape of a minor tribal girl by four Border Security Force personnel in Koraput.
The incident rocked the state and the Congress party resorted to shutdowns and marches demanding a compensation of Rs 50 lakh to the victim and arrest of the accused. A litigation was filed in Odisha high court seeking a federal probe into the sexual assault.
Odisha reported the fifth-highest number of rape cases in the country, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The report said in 2015, 2251 rape cases were registered in the coastal state, making it the fifth most unsafe state for women after Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.
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