Kolkata: The Kolkata police on Sunday formed a nine-member special investigation team (SIT) while the West Bengal Commission for Women and its national counterpart registered suo-motu cases in the alleged rape of a 24-year-old woman on Friday by a second-year Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C) student inside his hostel room on the campus, officials said.
The accused, Paramanand Mahaveer Toppannawar, 26, a resident of Karnataka, was arrested in the early hours of Saturday on the basis of a complaint lodged by the survivor at the Haridevpur police station in Kolkata.
“The SIT will probe all angles in the case. Phone calls made by the accused and the survivor and the chat history on their phone apps are being studied. Footages from all security cameras inside and outside the campus have been collected,” a police officer said requesting anonymity.
“The accused may be asked to take a medico-legal test. The clothes he wore during the alleged crime have been seized,” he added.
Although the woman — a psychological counsellor who had met the IIM-C student on social media — had alleged in her complaint that she was drugged and sexually assaulted, her father told the media on Saturday that nothing happened to her.
He claimed that she was “asked to file the complaint” but did not elaborate.
{{/usCountry}}He claimed that she was “asked to file the complaint” but did not elaborate.
{{/usCountry}}He did not face the media on Sunday.
“The woman refused to undergo a medical test till Sunday evening. This has to be done within 48 hours in a rape case,” said a second police officer.
“Security personnel on the IIM-C campus are being questioned to find out how a woman could reach a student’s hostel room without signing the register for guests. We are also checking whether the student called the woman for psychological counselling as was claimed,” said the second police officer.
“Toppannawar’s parents are also being questioned,” he added.
State women’s commission chairperson Leena Gangopadhyay said : “We have taken suo motu cognizance because this is a serious offence. We are in touch with the Haridevpur police station.”
With IIMC-C being a central institute, the issue triggered a political row with Archana Majumdar, a West Bengal-based member of the National Commission for Women, also taking cognizance of the case.
“The victim did not say in her complaint that she was raped. She said she was sexually assaulted. Her father also told the media that nothing happened to her. I tried to contact her father but his phone is switched off,” Majumdar said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party targeted the ruling Trinamool Congress citing some recent incidents of rape and molestation in the state.
“Statements made by the woman’s father and the circumstances indicate that there was a conspiracy,” former BJP state president Rahul Sinha said.
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, “We fail to understand what politics has got to do with the alleged rape of a woman inside a central institute’s campus by a student.”
According to the complaint, the survivor started to feel dizzy after having pizza and water that the accused had offered her for lunch in his hostel room.
Toppannawar was charged under Sections 64 (rape), 123 (administering drug to commit offence), 127(2) (wrongful confinement), 115(12) (voluntarily causing hurt) and 76 (forcefully disrobing a woman) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Kolkata’s Alipore court remanded him in police custody till July 19 on Saturday.